A commercial pilot on a Flydubai flight from Dubai to Israel was attacked by another pilot before passengers restrained the assailant in an incident feared to have been an attempted hijacking.
Israeli travellers aboard Flight FZ1073 said they believed the attacker intended to bring down the aircraft after stabbing a fellow pilot during Wednesday’s journey from Dubai to Tel Aviv.
An Israeli official said a “major disaster was narrowly avoided”, claiming passengers prevented what could have become an “Israeli 9/11” by overpowering and tying up the suspect.
The aircraft was flying at 34,000ft when it plunged 17,000ft in under two minutes. It then issued an emergency signal indicating unlawful interference before being diverted to Saudi Arabia.
Israel temporarily shut its airspace and launched fighter jets amid fears that the plane had been seized. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also held an emergency security meeting with Defence Minister Israel Katz.
Passenger video recorded shortly after the attack shows a bloodied crew member lying on the floor outside the cockpit while other travellers attend to him.
Another crew member lies nearby, apparently unconscious and also covered in blood.
Mr Katz called the incident “an attempted jihadist terror attack”, saying it was stopped only because of the “heroism of several Israeli passengers”.
Passenger footage shows an injured pilot on the aircraft floor as fellow travellers provide assistance
A second crew member lies beside the injured pilot, apparently unconscious and covered in blood
One passenger on the Flydubai flight appears with blood covering his shirt
Another passenger emerges with blood on his face from a wound to his forehead
The defence minister did not disclose the basis for attributing that motive to the attacker, whose identity has not been made public.
Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 recorded the aircraft’s steep descent over Saudi Arabia roughly two hours after departure. Shortly after 05.21 UTC, or 06.21 BST, the jet lost more than 17,000ft—over 5,000 metres—in less than two minutes.
Passengers said they heard shouting from the front of the plane after travellers nearby became aware of the confrontation.
Witnesses said two pilots who had been seated at the rear moved forward to help land the aircraft. One passenger recalled shouting at them: “Run and take control of the plane.”
Once the other pilots began managing the aircraft, passengers rushed towards the man who was carrying a knife.
Passenger Almog Itali said the two pilots had been “relief pilots” scheduled to operate a later flight.
He said one of the relief pilots was British, while the other was European.
Although the precise events inside the cockpit remain unclear, Mr Itali said the relief pilots stabilised the plane and guided it to a landing in Saudi Arabia.
‘There are quite a few versions,’ he says, after speaking to people from the front of the plane.
‘What is clear is that there were two pilots in the front – one stabbed the other.’
Another passenger who stomed the cockpit told Israeli media: ‘We jumped on the pilot with force and tied him up with headphones.’
Photographs from the flight show one passenger with a white shirt, which is covered in blood.
Another recorded a video with blood over his face, saying: ‘We’re here during the hijacking of an airplane. At this point we’ve subdued the terrorists, we’re approaching landing. Whoever is hearing me, we need help.
‘We’re landing in Tabuk, apparently in Saudi Arabia. An unknown, unfamiliar area. On the plane, everybody is safe and sound, other than the pilot. We need help.’
‘We were either going to crash or be murdered. It was like a terrorist attack in mid-air,’ another passenger said.
The plane sent a ‘squawk code’ of 7700, a general international emergency signal, as it made a U-turn over the Jordan-Saudi Arabia border.
When it flew over Saudi Arabia, it briefly issued a code 7500, meaning a hijacking or unlawful interference.
Authorities are investigating whether the pilot attempted to crash the plane, before being stopped by his co-pilot and passengers.
Another passenger on the Boeing 737 MAX said: ‘We heard screams on the plane. Then they opened the cockpit and we saw blood, and someone had stabbed the pilot with a pocketknife.’
She described how the Israeli passengers helped restrain an attacker along with members of the crew. ‘We prayed, “Shema Yisrael”,’ she said.
‘There were also moments when we thought we weren’t going to make it out alive.’
Another woman, identifying herself as Noam, said: ‘Screams began on the plane… by passengers who realised what was happening.
‘We understand that one of the pilots was stabbed and seriously wounded, and they lost control of the plane. It started to dive quickly. It was very scary.’
One passenger, Itzhak Liber, recorded a video addressed to his family before uploading it onto Facebook.
He said: ‘We took control of the situation here on the flight.
‘There was an attacker with a knife who stabbed one of the pilots.
‘We just jumped on him and restrained him together with the pilot.’
He added that the attacker had been ‘neutralised’, was ‘seriously injured’ and had been ‘tied up’.
One passenger said her husband helped to ‘neutralise the terrorist’.
The woman, Meital, says a member of the flight crew in the cockpit ‘tried to crash the plane’ and was subdued by passengers.
She said: ‘Someone shouted “stabbing” and my husband immediately understood what was happening and rushed to the front of the plane, and along with other Israelis they neutralised the terrorist.
‘There were stabbings and a lot of blood.
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‘We’re very emotional and under terrible stress, it’s very difficult for me to talk.’
Another passenger, Dalia Shpigelon, told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the aircraft lost control and began to ‘dive’ about an hour before the scheduled landing.
She told the paper that ‘suddenly there were terrible screams throughout the plane’ before ‘three to five guys burst into the cockpit’ and subdued the attacker and began treating the wounded pilot.
‘We realised that the situation was stabilising and continued the flight. Gradually, information began to emerge about what had happened in the cockpit,’ Shpigel said.
She described how the ‘young men’ then took charge and began tending to passengers as the plane diverted its route to land in Saudi Arabia.
‘Right now, we’re all here in the terminal, and medical teams are examining us,’ she added.
Mr Netanyahu has confirmed that ‘the pilot who carried out the stabbing was arrested and is currently being questioned by the Saudi authorities’.
In a statement, the Israeli prime minister said: ‘During the flight, as they were approaching Israel, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot and, apparently, tried to crash the plane with its passengers on board.
‘I spoke with one of the Israeli passengers. He told me that the plane went into a spin and began to descend.
‘He told me that, somehow, he managed to break into the cockpit with one of the crew members and, together, they overpowered the pilot who had carried out the stabbing while he was attempting to sabotage the aircraft’s systems.
‘Another air crew who was on the plane entered the cockpit and managed to stabilise the aircraft.
‘I salute these heroes who demonstrated extraordinary resourcefulness and courage. They saved many lives and prevented a major disaster.
‘The plane landed safely at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia. All the passengers are now out of danger.’
Passengers of the Flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv are seen inside the Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Airport in Tabuk, after their plane was forced to land in Saudi Arabia
Passengers on the plane told Israel’s Channel 12 that they heard shouts from passengers toward the front of the jet who heard the altercation between the pilots, and the aircraft dipped steeply before landing in Saudi Arabia
The jet dropped from 30,875 feet to 16,750 feet in just 29 seconds
Flydubai Boeing 737 MAX from Dubai to Tel Aviv, which landed at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia, September 30
Pictured: Damage done to rudder of the jet after the suspected attempted hijacking
There was a second team of pilots in civilian clothes on the plane, according to the outlet, who allegedly prevented one of the other pilots from taking over and crashing the jet.
A senior Israeli official told the channel that if the pilots had not been on the jet, the incident could have ended in another ‘September 11, 2001, attack or 1976 Entebbe hostage incident’.
Data from publicly available sources shows that two hours and fifteen minutes into the flight, the jet suddenly took a sharp nosedive, dropping from 34,000ft to around 17,000ft in under a minute as it sped up from 411 knots to nearly 600.
The aircraft recovered slightly for several seconds, reaching 21,650ft, before dropping sharply again, this time to under 14,000ft.
Over the next hour, the plane failed to maintain a steady altitude, but it remained at around 15,000ft, indicating it was being controlled by hand rather than autopilot, according to The Times of Israel.
Israeli authorities were unable to make contact with the jet during the incident.
A second official confirmed that Israel had scrambled warplanes, fearing a hijacking of a plane carrying dozens of its citizens.
Mr Netanyahu had warned in recent days of unspecified, escalated security threats ahead of Israel’s October 27 election, leading opposition chief Yair Lapid to accuse him of fear-mongering.
Mr Katz took a veiled swipe at Mr Lapid, saying the government’s security warnings should be taken seriously by ‘both our enemies outside and former insiders who are not up to date’.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was still under investigation.
Following the emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, the airline is sending a second plane to Tabuk Airport to fly passengers the remainder of the way to Israel.
The Flydubai flight that landed at Tabuk Airport appears to have sustained damage to the rudder on the rear of the aircraft, photographs show.
The images show that a section of the rudder is missing from the vertical stabiliser.
Mr Katz and IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir were also considering the possibility of dispatching military or civilian aircraft in order to bring Israeli passengers home, Walla learned.
Israel has not experienced a hijacking in decades but maintains some of the strictest airport security in the world.
Commercial flights have flown between Israel and the United Arab Emirates since the countries normalised ties in 2020.
The Flydubai aircraft, which took off from Dubai, abruptly turned around while flying over Jordan after a suspected security incident was reported onboard
A Flydubai spokesman told Our News Outlet: ‘An altercation occurred in the flight deck of flight FZ 1073, operating from Dubai International (DXB) to Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV), on September 30.
‘The aircraft was successfully secured by on-duty Flydubai crew travelling on the flight, who diverted and landed the aircraft safely at Tabuk Airport (TUU).
‘All passengers and crew are safe and accounted for.
‘We have deployed two replacement aircraft to Tabuk to relieve the passengers and crew.
‘This incident has no impact on other scheduled operations across the flydubai network.
‘At this early stage, the underlying reasons and motives behind this event are unknown and remain subject to a formal investigation.
‘We urge all parties to refrain from premature speculation while authorities gather the facts.
‘Our immediate priority is to ensure the ongoing safety, health, and wellbeing of all passengers and crew members involved in this incident and support the official investigation.’
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
