The pilot of a commercial plane traveling from Dubai to Israel allegedly attacked his co-pilot and tried to hijack the flight with the intention of crashing it, according to an Israeli official.
A ‘major disaster was narrowly avoided’, the official told the Jerusalem Post, describing how passengers onboard the flight managed to subdue the pilot and bring him under control.
Flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv diverted over Jordanian airspace towards Saudi Arabia, transmitting a general emergency signal and then another emergency signal.
The incident raised concerns about a possible hijacking and prompted Israel to scramble warplanes.
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 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 plane initially transmitted squawk code 7700, indicating a general emergency, before switching to 7500, which signals unlawful interference, and later reverting to the initial code.
A photograph purportedly from the flight shows one passenger with a white shirt covered in blood.
One of the passengers on the FlyDubai aircraft can be seen with blood on his shirt
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
The growing consensus among the Israeli security establishment, including the IDF, Mossad, and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), is that the incident was intended as an act of terror.
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.
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.
According to Israel’s i24NEWS, which reported on the ‘violent’ altercation, the pilot was Russian and the co-pilot was Ukrainian.
The television channel said it was currently being examined whether a stabbing incident occurred between the pilots.
‘We were either going to crash or be murdered. It was like a terrorist attack in mid-air,’ one passenger said.
The channel reported that authorities are allegedly investigating whether the pilot attempted to crash the plane, which the co-pilot and passengers prevented.
Another passenger on the Boeing 737 MAX told Israel’s Channel 12: ‘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, 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.’
There was a second team of pilots in civilian clothes on the plane, according to the outlet.
These were the passengers who allegedly prevented one of the pilots from taking over the plane.
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’.
The plane sent a the ‘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.
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.
A second official confirmed that Israel had scrambled warplanes, fearing a hijacking of a plane carrying dozens of its citizens.
Not long after the incident, the plane landed in Tabuk, a civilian and military base in the kingdom, with 180 passengers onboard.
Netanyahu has warned in recent days of unspecified, escalated security threats.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was still under investigation.
Following the emergency landing of the plane in Saudi Arabia, the airline is sending a second plane to Tabruk 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.
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 spokesperson told the Daily Mail: ‘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.’
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
