Mom on hijacked flydubai flight with four young daughters had one instruction for them: ‘I’ll never forget’

 

A mother who was sitting with her four young daughters on the flydubai plane when it was hijacked by a suspected terrorist says she had only one thing to say to her kids: Pray for a miracle.

Lital Hirschl-Shahar, 39, said chaos broke out on Wednesday’s flydubai Flt. 1073 bound for Israel when someone near the front of the cabin started yelling that the pilot was under attack and that a large amount of blood was all over the cockpit.

“It all happened so fast, and the plane just started dropping down,” Hirschl-Shahar told The Post. “It was so scary and crazy … We all thought we were going to die.

“I was talking to God nonstop, believing prayer was the only thing that could save us. I told my daughters to pray, too.

“We needed a miracle, and I couldn’t help but think, ‘Is this how you’re going to die? Is this how your girls are going to die?’ ” the mom said.

Hirschl-Shahar said she was returning from a family vacation in Singapore and Thailand with her four girls — ages 14, 11, 7 and 5 — when co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami attempted to hijack the plane.

Pilot Smit Machchhar, who was stabbed multiple times during the attack, fought off al-Hammami long enough to open the cockpit door, alerting everyone to the crisis taking place.

“We heard a lady in business class shouting. She sounded so terrified, in a way I’ll never forget,” Hirschl-Shahar recalled.

Plumber Yaniv Hayun, who was seated behind the panicked mother and her daughters, was among the men to immediately spring to action to help the pilot and stop al-Hammami, who was allegedly attacking the control panel to take down the plane.

During the confrontation, the plane took a nose dive, dropping about 18,000 feet within the span of 12 minutes.

But Hayun and his fellow passengers were able to quickly restrain al-Hammami and provide first aid to Machchhar, with the plumber stabilizing the flight by using what he learned from the Canadian flight disaster documentary series, “Mayday.”

Two off-duty pilots were also onboard and helped the plane conduct an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, with the aircraft arriving safely despite damage to its rudder.

“It was just a miracle wrapped in a miracle wrapped in a miracle,” Hirschl-Shahar said.

The family is now home recovering from the ordeal, with Hirschl-Shahar’s 7-year-old suffering a fever from the stress of the event.

Hirschl-Shahar said she’s also had to confront comments from social media claiming that the attempted hijacking was staged, undermining the terror that she and the 173 other passengers have had to endure.