Former Israeli deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel has said the pilot on the flight to Tel Aviv was able to open the door which allowed passengers to intervene.

Speaking on GB News, she said: “We’re still getting a lot of the testimonies, and we’re still waiting for the investigations by the Saudi authorities, and that’s very important to understand the bigger picture.

“But what we can understand from our intelligence and from the testimonies is that the co-pilot from an Omani background stabbed the pilot, who is from an Indian origin.

“One of the women that noticed it because the intuition of the pilot to open the door has led a way for four Israeli passengers and neutralized the co-pilot just before the pilot collapsed completely.

“Now this is while the airplane is being dropping and the co-pilot was attempting to destroy the board of navigations and steering wheels.

“So they saw him and they fought him until they were able to neutralize him and tie him on the floor.

“I mean, this is out of a Hollywood movie, this scene, but because of the brave courage and the risk of their life of those Israeli passengers who were able to constrain and to neutralise this terrorist, more than 150 innocent civilians, passengers were were really saved.”