The Papers: 'Israel's 9/11 stopped' and 'That was a great life'

Many of the papers are leading on the passengers who helped prevent a possible plane hijacking of a flight bound for Israel. The Daily Telegraph explains that on Wednesday, a Flydubai jet carrying Israelis from Dubai to Tel Aviv went into a nosedive after the pilot was stabbed by his co-pilot at 34,000 ft. Passengers were able to wrestle the suspected hijacker from the cockpit and subdue him, the paper said. It adds that "hero" passengers could have stopped "Israel's 9/11", with security sources telling the Telegraph that the "terrorist" may have been planning to crash the plane into an Israeli city.

Photographs from the Flydubai flight are front and centre of the Times, which names the stabbed pilot as Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national. The paper says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the passengers who intervened as "lions", and declared Machchhar a "true hero" of "extraordinary bravery". It adds that the prime minister has instructed authorities to "ramp up security" on flights to Israel, regardless of whether they are operated by Israeli or non-Israeli airlines.

Similarly, the headline of the i Paper reads: "Hero passengers storm cockpit to save Israel flight from disaster." According to the paper, Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz has described the incident as an "attempted jihadist terror attack".

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