Israeli passengers foil Flydubai copilot plot to crash Tel Aviv flight

JERUSALEM, Israel,— Israeli passengers flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv landed safely in Israel on Wednesday after a co-pilot stabbed the plane’s captain and attempted to crash the aircraft, a situation that travelers and crew members stopped by storming the cockpit, Israeli officials said.

The flydubai jet, operating as flight FZ1073, dropped nearly 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds during the struggle, officials said.

Passengers and crew rushed into the cockpit, subdued the co-pilot, and allowed a second set of flydubai pilots traveling on the same flight to take control and land the plane safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

More than 10 hours after the ordeal, the travelers reached Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on a replacement flydubai aircraft.

Many called their survival a miracle and described a chaotic fight to keep the plane from crashing.

Israeli officials said investigators have not yet determined why the attacker acted. Israel and the United Arab Emirates, home to Dubai, established formal diplomatic relations under the 2020 Abraham Accords.

The episode raised fresh worries about aviation safety in a region shaped by years of conflict and led Israel to announce tighter screening of pilots flying into the country.

Passenger Lital Shachaf called the outcome 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,” she said.

“We are back home. And we are happy to see everyone here.”

Israel’s national ambulance service said a 51-year-old man was brought to a hospital in Israel for treatment of upper-body injuries and was listed in mild condition.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the event as a serious security incident and said Saudi authorities would question the co-pilot. Flydubai said in a statement that the cause of the incident remained unclear and cautioned against premature speculation.

An Israeli official said the co-pilot was a citizen of Oman. Omani authorities had not issued a response.

Israeli officials praised the passengers, crediting them with preventing a far worse outcome. Netanyahu said 174 people were aboard the flight from Dubai, the majority of them Israeli citizens.

President Donald Trump said he had a lengthy phone call with Netanyahu on Wednesday about the incident.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump gave a detailed version of events, adding, “This is the story that I heard. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s the story that I got from Bibi.”

Indian Smit Machchhar hero flydubai pilot Israel flight Sep 30 2026 — The leaders of Israel and India hailed Indian pilot Smit Machchhar as a hero for saving passengers after he was stabbed by his colleague in an alleged ‌attempt to crash a flydubai plane on September 30, 2026. Photo: Israeli Foreign Ministry.

A spokesperson for Netanyahu told Reuters that the injured captain, identified by the prime minister’s office as Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, was lying on the floor covered in blood when he managed to release the cockpit door lock.

For Machchhar, now hailed as a hero for helping avert a crash of a flydubai jet bound for Israel, aviation was never part of his childhood dreams.

Passengers who rushed in found the co-pilot striking the plane’s control panel, the spokesperson said.

Asaf Rajuan, one of the passengers who helped hold down the attacker, said he acted on instinct. “This is something you do without thinking, just running to save your daughter’s life, your family’s life,” he said, his forehead still marked with blood from the struggle.

Netanyahu’s office released footage of the prime minister embracing another passenger, Yaniv Hayun, at Ben Gurion Airport.

The office said Hayun had forced his way into the cockpit. “I see you and I see a lion, a big hero,” Netanyahu told him. Hayun was still wearing the blood-stained shirt from the flight.

Flydubai runs daily round-trip flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv, a route widely used by Israeli travelers. The flight normally crosses Saudi and Jordanian airspace.

This is not the first time a flight between Israel and the UAE has been diverted to Saudi Arabia.

A flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Riyadh in September 2025 because of a medical emergency, Israeli media reported at the time.

Officials at Tabuk airport, where Wednesday’s flight landed, said both pilots were hospitalized with injuries.

The incident added to security concerns in Israel just weeks before the country’s first election since the October 7, 2023, attacks led by Hamas, with national security a central issue in the campaign.

Far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X that terrorism is a force that cannot be negotiated with.

Israeli media outlets gave conflicting accounts of the episode, with some reporting that a pilot had attempted suicide by trying to crash the plane.

Early reports from some outlets identified the pilots as Omani and Emirati nationals, while others said they were Russian and Ukrainian.

Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for Netanyahu, told Reuters that Israel plans to verify the identities of pilots on all flights entering the country and conduct security checks on them going forward.

Netanyahu met Sunday with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan during a rare trip to the Gulf nation.

Israel and the UAE have built close security, military, and economic ties since normalizing relations.

Earlier this year, Israel supplied the UAE with Iron Dome air defense systems along with Israeli personnel to operate them, support that came after Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran and Iran responded with attacks of its own.

The UAE government had not commented on the flydubai incident as of Wednesday.

The Dubai-owned airline said in a statement that an altercation took place in the cockpit, prompting the flight to divert to Tabuk, where it landed without further incident.

The UAE’s aviation regulator, the GCAA, said the flight experienced a security incident that was brought under control.

(With files from Reuters)