A bloodied passenger filmed an urgent appeal for assistance aboard Wednesday’s allegedly hijacked flight from Dubai to Israel, shortly after helping restrain a man armed with a knife.
According to an Israeli official, the pilot of the FlyDubai aircraft allegedly attacked his co-pilot earlier that morning and attempted to seize control of the plane, reportedly intending to crash it.
The official told the Jerusalem Post that passengers narrowly prevented a “major disaster” by overpowering the pilot and taking control of the situation.
Video shows the passenger who helped subdue the alleged attacker with blood running down his face from a deep wound extending from his forehead to his nose.
“We’re on an airplane that’s been hijacked. At this point, we’ve subdued the terrorists and we’re preparing to land. Whoever can hear me, we need help,” he says in the recording.
“Apparently, we’re landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, an unfamiliar area. Everyone on the plane is safe and sound, apart from the pilot. We need help,” he adds.
Images circulating online from inside the cabin appear to show another passenger wearing a white shirt heavily stained with blood.
Other graphic footage shows the injured pilot lying bloodied on the cabin floor while passengers provide him with oxygen.
Footage shows the passenger who helped restrain the alleged attacker with blood running from a wound stretching from his forehead to his nose
Graphic video appears to show the wounded pilot lying bloodied on the floor as passengers give him oxygen
A second crew member appears tied up beside the pilot, apparently unconscious and covered in blood
A second crew member also appears to have been restrained beside him. The individual seems unconscious and is covered in blood.
FlyDubai Flight FZ1073, travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv, diverted over Jordanian airspace toward Saudi Arabia after transmitting a general emergency signal followed by a second alert.
The incident triggered fears of a potential hijacking and led Israel to scramble fighter jets.
Flight data indicated that the aircraft descended suddenly by almost 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds before the first emergency signal, according to Flightradar24.
Passengers told Israel’s Channel 12 that they heard shouting near the front of the aircraft during an apparent confrontation involving the pilots. They also described the plane dipping sharply before landing in Saudi Arabia.
Israel’s security establishment, including the Israel Defense Forces, Mossad and Shin Bet, is reportedly increasingly convinced that the episode was intended as a terrorist attack.
A second group of pilots, who were reportedly travelling in civilian clothing, was allegedly on board and helped stop one of the pilots from taking control of the aircraft and crashing it.
A passenger on Wednesday’s allegedly hijacked flight has described how Israeli travellers overpowered the man with the knife.
Passenger Itzhak Liber recorded a message for his family before posting the video on Facebook.
‘We took control of the situation here on the flight,’ he said in the clip, ‘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.
Liber said the attacker had been ‘neutralised’ and was ‘seriously injured’.
‘Apparently the other pilot is inside [the cockpit]. He’s completely freaked out, but he’s managing to land the plane,’ he added.
Tzvika Manes – who is the CEO of Israeli underwriting firm Barak Leumi – was one of the passengers involved in subduing the attacker.
He told Israeli newspaper Calcalist: ‘My wife was standing near the cockpit because my daughter was in the bathroom. Suddenly she heard shouting, screaming, and noise from the cockpit. She told the pilot who was outside, ‘Something is happening, get in, get in.”
‘He opened it, then three of us jumped. We neutralized him, the terrorist, and a doctor assisted the lead pilot,’ Manes said.
‘The co-pilot stabbed the other one and tried to smash the plane, to crush it. There was a struggle between them. Another pilot came in, we took control of the terrorist, the other pilot took command.
‘He called for help and I and two others entered the cockpit and took control of the terrorist. I’m covered in blood. It was crazy.’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz held an urgent meeting to discuss the situation, while Israeli airspace was also temporarily closed and later reopened.
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A regional official briefed on the incident said a fight broke out in the cockpit and apparently involved pilots, but added it wasn’t immediately clear what had caused the dispute.
‘We were either going to crash or be murdered. It was like a terrorist attack in mid-air,’ one passenger told i24NEWS.
One of the passengers on the Flydubai aircraft can be seen with blood on his shirt
The channel reported that authorities are allegedly investigating whether the pilot attempted to crash the plane, which the co-pilot and passengers prevented.
An Israeli passenger named Miriam, who spoke with Israeli broadcaster i24NEWS, said: ‘About an hour or two before the landing, we heard screaming from the plane.’
‘We just heard screaming, and they opened the cockpit and saw a ton of blood from someone who was apparently trying to murder the pilot with a pocketknife.’
She described how the plane lost control and how she feared that the plane was going to crash.
‘I screamed ‘Shema Yisrael’, and said ‘I cannot die’,’ Miriam said.
According to Miriam, several Israeli passengers helped restrain the attacker, while people onboard with medical training assisted the injured pilot.
‘There were also moments when we thought we weren’t going to make it out alive,’ she added.
Another woman, identifying herself as Noam, told the network in a call: ‘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.’
A woman named Tehila, whose sister was on board the plane, told Israeli media: ‘We saw that the plane was delayed. Another hour passed, and she didn’t update us. Then she said one of the passengers tried to murder the pilot.’
An unnamed woman told news outlet Walla that she was waiting to pick her 75-year-old mother from the airport when she first heard of the incident.
‘There were moments of great anxiety. We were unable to contact her. We understand that there is no reception…but in the situation that Israel is in, a kidnapping scenario is realistic.’
Data from publicly available sources shows that two hours and fifteen minutes into the flight, the jet suddenly took a sharp nosedive, dropping from 34,000 to around 17,000 feet in under a minute as it sped up from 411 knots to nearly 600.
The aircraft recovered slightly for several seconds, reaching 21,650 feet, before dropping sharply again, this time to under 14,000 feet.
Over the next hour, the plane failed to maintain a steady altitude, but it remained at around 15,000 feet, 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.
Not long after the incident, the plane landed in Tabuk, a civilian and military base in the kingdom, with 180 passengers onboard.
Pictured: Flydubai Boeing 737 MAX from Dubai to Tel Aviv, which landed at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia, September 30
Netanyahu has warned in recent days of unspecified, escalated security threats.
Following the emergency landing of the plane in Saudi Arabia, the airline is sending a second plane to Tabuk Airport to fly passengers the remainder of the way to Israel.
Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir were also considering the possibility of dispatching Israeli military or civilian aircraft in order to bring the Israelis home, Walla learned.
Israel has not experienced a hijacking in decades but maintains some of the strictest airport security in the world.
Commercial flight have flown between Israel and the United Arab Emirates since the countries normalised ties in 2020.
A Flydubai spokesperson told Our News Outlet: ‘Flydubai can confirm that flight FZ 1073 operating from Dubai International (DXB) to Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) on September 30 experienced an incident while en route.
‘The aircraft has landed safely in Tabuk Airport (TUU) and all passengers are safe and accounted for.
‘The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew remain our highest priority.
‘Our teams are working closely with the relevant authorities. Further updates will be issued as additional confirmed details become available.’
