A pilot on a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel stabbed another pilot and apparently tried to crash the jetliner carrying around 170 people, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. The incident occurred on a FlyDubai flight, which departed from Dubai and was headed to Israel. Passengers and crew subdued the attacker, and the plane landed safely in Saudi Arabia.
The flight, which had departed from Dubai, issued an emergency alert and abruptly descended thousands of feet after the altercation between the two pilots. Israel scrambled warplanes amid concerns about a possible hijacking. As the plane began to dive, a passenger and a crew member broke into the cockpit, Netanyahu said, citing a passenger he spoke to. Other crew members took over flying the plane.
According to Flightradar24, the plane descended from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in about a minute, before making an erratic circle close to the Jordanian border and landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, about an hour later. The plane's captain and first officer were injured, according to a statement by Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk. Passengers received medical attention from local authorities.
Netanyahu praised the passengers who intervened, saying they "saved many lives and prevented a major disaster." An Israeli official said a fight broke out between two pilots, one of whom was armed with a knife. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was under investigation. Around 160 people on the plane were from Israel, according to a spokesperson for Netanyahu's office.
The incident occurred as Israel is a week away from the anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which has triggered a series of wars, and is weeks away from an election. Netanyahu had warned in recent days of unspecified, heightened security threats. The country has some of the strictest airport security in the world, including on Israel-bound flights.
This was not the first emergency landing in Saudi Arabia for a plane carrying Israelis. The kingdom does not have formal diplomatic ties with Israel but ended its longstanding ban on Israeli flights overflying its territory in 2022. Since then, Saudi Arabia has coordinated emergency landings for Israeli passengers, including in 2023 when a plane experienced an electrical malfunction.
The UAE has become a popular vacation destination for Israeli tourists since the countries normalized ties in 2020. FlyDubai confirmed that an "altercation occurred in the flight deck" and the aircraft was secured by on-duty crew "who diverted and landed the aircraft safely." The incident is under investigation by Saudi Arabia and regional partners.
Key points
- The plane carried around 170 people, mostly from Israel.
- Passengers and crew subdued the attacker and prevented a major disaster.
- The incident occurred as Israel faces heightened security threats.
