Canadian TV show ‘Mayday’ cited by passenger who thwarted Flydubai attack

TORONTO – A passenger who helped avert a catastrophe on a FlyDubai flight after the pilot was stabbed mid-air has said he credited a Canadian-made TV show for knowing how to seize control of the aircraft.

The long-running documentary series “Mayday” examines real-life air disasters, including crashes, near-crashes, hijackings and bombings.

The show’s executive producer Alex Bystram said it was rewarding to know the series has been associated with a story that has a happy ending for the more than 170 passengers.

“Whether it gave him the knowledge to do what he did or gave him courage to try to do something, or even just ensure that he didn’t do the wrong thing. It would be easy for him to go into that cockpit and then make things worse,” Bystram said. “It’s nice to get that kind of publicity, and it’s nice to be associated with a story with a happy ending like that.”

Israeli passenger Yaniv Hayoun has been praised as a hero along with others who entered the cockpit and helped subdue the co-pilot who had allegedly stabbed the captain of a flight bound for Tel Aviv from Dubai.

According to reports in Reuters and CNN, Hayoun told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he knew how to take control of the nosediving aircraft because he watched “Air Crash Investigation,” which is the name of the docuseries outside of North America.

Other crew members travelling on the plane helped land the aircraft safely in Saudi Arabia.

Speaking from Toronto, Bystram humbly said he’s under no illusions that the TV show, which has aired since 2003, is responsible for saving the aircraft, and he cautioned that the program is “far from a teaching tool on how to fly an airplane.”

Instead, he credited the pilot, identified as Capt. Smit Machchhar from Mumbai, India, for his quick-thinking to unlock the cockpit door despite his injuries, which allowed others to intervene and take control of the Boeing 737.

“For me, this story is about a captain who just did the most remarkable thing I’ve ever heard of in commercial aviation, which is, you know, bleeding, bloodied, stabbed, your plane descending 10,000 feet per minute,” Bystram said. “You have the wherewithal to figure out to open that door to let these people in. Amazing.”

“Mayday,” which has run for more than 20 seasons, investigates real-life aviation disasters to find out what went wrong and why. 

Episodes feature dramatized re-enactments based on cockpit voice recorders, accident reports and eyewitness accounts. Computer-generated imagery is used to reconstruct events, while interviews with people involved, including passengers and pilots, as well as aviation experts and investigators, further paint the picture of the emergency, its aftermath, and the resulting investigation.

Bystram, who has been associated with the series since its fifth season, said the goal of each episode is to tell a story of how investigators determined how and why an air disaster happened and the resulting response from the aviation industry to prevent a similar accident from ever happening again.

The show, which has more than 250 episodes and attracts viewers from across the world, dispels some of the mystery around flying and “pulls back the curtain a little bit,” Bystram said. As a result, he said he’s heard from viewers who told him the show has alleviated fears of flying because it reveals that, in most cases, it takes a string of errors to bring down a plane, and people “feel relieved to know that it’s not just one thing.”

“Our show has a very, I think, reassuring message, which is these plane crashes result in very specific changes to aviation that prevent these accidents from happening again,” Bystram said. “For a lot of people, there is an element of relief and comfort to know that what happened on this particular flight isn’t going to happen on my flight that — that problem is being fixed.”

The executive producer said he’s also heard from pilots who have learned how not to react during emergencies from watching the program.

“Most pilots aren’t in accidents like this, so they watch how the pilots reacted, and they can see what the outcome was, and I think it’s a teaching tool for them,” he said.

“Mayday” is produced in Toronto by the Canadian media production company Cineflix Media. The homegrown team behind the show also includes professional pilots, who check scripts for accuracy and work with the actors hired for the re-enactments.

The series airs in about 175 countries worldwide and is known by several different names, including “Air Disasters” in the United States.

With the show’s 27th season set for release in the new year, Bystram said the recent FlyDubai incident was a reminder of the show’s wide reach.

“You sort of lose touch with the fact that people are watching the show you make,” he said. “For me to hear that not only are people watching the show, but they’re learning something from the show that caused them to take this kind of action, it’s rewarding. And it’s a good reminder that the information that we give better be accurate.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 1, 2026.