A flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv became the scene of a violent struggle in the cockpit on Wednesday, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot stabbed the captain and attempted to crash the aircraft. Passengers and a crew member broke into the cockpit and overpowered him, and the plane diverted to Tabuk airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia, where it landed safely.
According to Netanyahu, the co-pilot — identified by an Israeli official as an Omani national — was arrested after landing. He praised those on board, saying passengers described the aircraft entering a dive before they intervened, and credited them with preventing what he called a heavy disaster. Nearly everyone on board was Israeli; Israeli media put the number at around 150 passengers.
Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 painted a dramatic picture: flight FZ1073 apparently lost close to 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds while over Jordanian airspace before the first emergency signal went out. The aircraft then transmitted a second signal indicating possible unlawful interference, followed by the original general emergency again before touching down at Tabuk. Both pilots were hospitalised, the airport said, one seriously and one slightly injured, according to an account from a passenger carried by Israeli media.
Details remain murky. Israeli outlets filed conflicting reports — some suggested the attack may have been an attempted suicide, and the nationalities of the two pilots were variously reported as Omani and Emirati or Russian and Ukrainian. A passenger's mother told Israeli media her daughter described screaming, a man with a knife forcing a pilot to the floor, and blood in the cabin. Flydubai has said only that the flight experienced an "incident" and diverted with everyone safe and accounted for, while the UAE has not commented. The episode triggered national security consultations in Israel, which has no diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, the country where the plane landed.
Why does this matter for travellers? The Dubai–Tel Aviv route is one of the busier Gulf–Israel connections, with flydubai flying it daily and the route typically crossing Saudi and Jordanian airspace — a routing made possible by the Abraham Accords era. While incidents like this are exceedingly rare, the story underlines how quickly a routine regional flight can become an international incident when it diverts to a country without formal ties to Israel, as happened when another Dubai–Tel Aviv flight made a medical-related emergency landing in Riyadh in September 2025. Israeli authorities say arrangements are under way to fly the passengers home. Anyone flying this corridor in the coming days should expect possible heightened security screening and check directly with the airline for schedule updates.
