Passengers foil bid to crash Dubai-Tel Aviv flight after co-pilot stabbed pilot, Israel says

Passengers and crew entered the cockpit, overpowered ‌the co-pilot and enabled a second pair of FlyDubai pilots who were aboard the flight to land the jet safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, Israeli officials said.

More than 10 hours later, the passengers arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport aboard a replacement aircraft, with several describing the episode as a miracle and recounting a frantic struggle to prevent a catastrophe.

“I just can say that it was a miracle. It was awful, crazy, and we thank God that we survived it. We didn’t think we will make it, but thank God we are in Israel. We are back home. And we are happy to see everyone here,” passenger Lital ​Shachaf said.

The flight from the United Arab Emirates diverted to Saudi Arabia after transmitting emergency signals earlier in the day. The airport in Tabuk reported that a FlyDubai flight made a distress call at 8:44 a.m. local time, before landing safely at 9:45 a.m.

Motive under investigation

Israeli officials said the attacker’s motive aboard Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv remained under investigation. Israel and the U.A.E., which includes Dubai, signed the Abraham Accords normalizing relations in 2020.

The airport in Saudi Arabia said both pilots had been hospitalized after sustaining injuries.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot alleged to have committed the stabbing was being questioned by Saudi authorities, though it wasn’t clear if that was taking place in the hospital.

FlyDubai co-pilot tried to crash plane after stabbing pilot, Netanyahu says

A FlyDubai flight bound for Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after an alleged violent incident in the cockpit. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the co-pilot stabbed the pilot and tried to crash the plane before passengers and crew subdued them. FlyDubai says the circumstances remain under investigation.

Netanyahu said he spoke with one of the Israeli passengers on the plane, who relayed that they responded by entering the cockpit, along with a crew member. The alleged attacker was subdued, he said, with a separate crew member managing to stabilize the plane.

The plane ​diverted over Jordanian airspace toward Saudi Arabia, transmitting a general emergency signal ​and then another emergency signal that indicated possible unlawful interference several minutes later, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.

The aircraft’s data appeared to ⁠show that it had suddenly and rapidly descended by nearly ‌14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds before the first emergency signal, Flightradar24 said.

Passengers on the FlyDubai aircraft bound for Israel from the United Arab Emirates, which was diverted to Saudi Arabia following an emergency signal, arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on Wednesday. (Ammar Awad/Reuters)

The emergency signals triggered a major security response in Israel, which has no official diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, where the plane landed.

About 160 passengers were on board the Boeing 737 plane. They were eventually retrieved by another aircraft, landing in Israel on Wednesday evening.

“I was sitting next to the window … 15,000 feet we fell down and you’re in shock,” passenger Peleg Italy told CBC’s Willy Lowry after arriving in Tel Aviv. “You don’t know what happened.”

Italy said while he couldn’t see the front of the plane from his seat, he saw people running toward the cockpit and soon the plane levelled out. “So we started flying up, and we were, like, whoa. But then the plane shifted back to normal, and everyone was squished under the G-Force.”

In this still photo from video, passenger Peleg Italy describes his experience on board the FlyDubai flight as it suddenly plunged. (CBC)

Panic on board

“People started yelling and shouting that’s there’s blood and there’s a stabbing,” passenger Adam Polo told CBC News Network’s Andrew Nichols from Tel Aviv. He said his fellow passengers were panicking because they could feel the plane was falling, they didn’t know what was going on and there was no way to communicate with anyone on the ground.

Polo said they eventually realized the pilot had gotten the door to the cockpit open, the alleged attacker was subdued and another pilot got control of the aircraft.

The incident highlighted the potential risks on a route that has become popular among Israeli nationals since the U.A.E. and Israel normalized ties six years ago.

Polo said there was indeed some concern on board when they heard the plane was going to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, but that the concern was short-lived.

“They welcomed us in a very, very nice way. They gave everyone medical treatment, they gave us food and something to drink, sweets for the kids,” Polo said.

A spokesperson for Netanyahu told Reuters that the wounded captain, identified by the Israeli leader’s office as Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, was covered with blood on the floor when he managed to ⁠click the release to open the cockpit door. Passengers who entered found the co-pilot bashing at the plane’s control panel, the spokesperson said.

Passengers aboard the flight described panic and then relief. (Ohad Zwigenberg/The Associated Press)

The incident came weeks before Israel holds elections on Oct. 27, with security among the top issues in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led mass attack of Oct. 7, 2023.

Netanyahu ordered authorities to “ramp up” security on both Israeli and foreign carriers flying into the country.

“Every pilot that is going to be flying into Israel, we are going to know the pilots’ identities, know who they are, and do some type of security check,” Doron Spielman, ​a Netanyahu spokesperson, told Reuters.

Israel has not experienced a hijacking in decades but maintains some of the strictest airport security in the world, including on Israel-bound flights. During the 1960s and ’70s, Israelis were targeted in a string of hijackings and airplane attacks by militants, including a 1972 incident in which Netanyahu, then with the Israel Defence Forces, was struck in the arm by a bullet during a rescue operation.

Friends and family wait to greet the passengers as they arrive back in Tel Aviv following the diverted flight. (Michal Yaakov Itzhaki/Reuters)

FlyDubai cautions against ‘speculation’

In a statement, FlyDubai said two replacement aircraft were deployed to Tabuk to transport the passengers and crew, and it cautioned against early “speculation” about the incident.

“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,” the statement read.

The U.A.E. had yet to comment on the incident.

FlyDubai is the lower-cost sister carrier of Emirates airlines. It operates daily return ⁠flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv and normally uses airspace over Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The carrier’s fleet relies entirely on variants of the 737 — a twin-engine, single-aisle aircraft that is widely used by airlines around the world. It has nearly 100 of the planes, including 69 of the Max 8 variant.

Though rare, there have been alleged and confirmed incidents of pilot murder-suicide before. It was concluded that a Germanwings pilot deliberately crashed a plane in the French Alps in 2015, killing all 150 people on the aircraft.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board concluded that an EgyptAir pilot in 1999 downed a plane into the Atlantic Ocean after taking off from New York — a finding that the Egyptian government disputed.

— Thomson Reuters