Flydubai Co-Pilot Stabbed Captain and Tried to Crash Israel-Bound Jet, Netanyahu Says
Two off-duty pilots among the 174 passengers helped take control of Flight FZ1073, which landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The jet had transmitted both emergency and hijacking codes.
A flydubai co-pilot stabbed his captain in the cockpit of a Boeing 737 bound for Tel Aviv on Wednesday and apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone aboard, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. The aircraft landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, after other pilots on board helped regain control.
"One of the pilots stabbed the other and apparently attempted to crash the plane, with everyone on board," Netanyahu said. Flight FZ1073 had left Dubai carrying 174 passengers, including 27 children, most of them Israelis. Reports said the jet dropped abruptly from about 33,000 feet to about 17,000 feet in under a minute and then flew erratically near the Jordanian border.
During the struggle the aircraft transmitted squawk code 7700, the international signal for a general emergency, and then 7500, the code that signals unlawful interference with an aircraft and is usually associated with a hijacking. Aviation outlets that tracked the flight said the plane reached speeds beyond its maximum operating limit during the dive.
The captain, identified by Euronews as Smit Machchaar, an Indian national, was seriously wounded but managed to open the cockpit door, according to the account. Two off-duty pilots who were traveling as passengers then went in. One outlet reported they were a Russian and a Ukrainian pilot. They helped subdue the co-pilot and flew the airliner to a landing in northwestern Saudi Arabia.
A passenger told Israel's Channel 12 that there were "stabbings and a lot of blood" and described efforts to "neutralise the terrorist." Passengers were evacuated at Tabuk and later flew on to Tel Aviv aboard a replacement flydubai aircraft. Both pilots were taken to a hospital.
The co-pilot is reportedly an Omani national who had worked for the airline for about nine months. Saudi authorities arrested him, and Netanyahu said he is being investigated in Saudi Arabia. The prime minister said preliminary information suggested the co-pilot meant to crash the plane. Neither flydubai nor Saudi officials had given a motive when this story was published.
Flydubai has flown between Dubai and Tel Aviv since the United Arab Emirates and Israel normalized relations in 2020, and the route is one of the most visible results of that diplomatic shift. The incident comes while the region is already on edge over the war with Iran and the stalled ceasefire talks, which raised early fears that the plane had been hijacked.
The case will turn on the cockpit voice and flight data recorders and on what the investigators in Saudi Arabia find. Flight crews are trained to lock the cockpit door against outside threats, but this episode, if the accounts hold, involved one crew member turning on another from inside the locked space. Aviation regulators are likely to examine how crew are screened and how airlines respond when a pilot is incapacitated during a flight.
