Jerusalem
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3 min read
A pilot aboard a FlyDubai flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel stabbed his co-pilot and attempted to crash the plane, forcing the commercial aircraft to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, Israel’s prime minister said Wednesday.
“During the flight, when they approached Israel, one of the pilots stabbed the other and apparently tried to crash the plane,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement.
Some of the passengers and crew members aboard the aircraft charged the cockpit and restrained the assailant, allowing a second pair of pilots on board to take the controls and safely land the plane. About 180 people were on the flight, most of them Israeli citizens.
None of the passengers suffered significant injuries in the confrontation with the assailant, which dominated headlines in Israel throughout the day.
Flight 1073 departed Dubai for Tel Aviv at 6:50 a.m. Wednesday. About two hours in, the cockpit transmitted an emergency broadcast and the airliner diverted from its course.
“They had already served breakfast, and we ate and they cleared it,” Hila Gaier, one of the passengers, told Israel’s Kan radio. “Suddenly, the plane plummeted.”
“The communications and electricity and screens cut out, and we were diving down, then we straightened out, then dived,” she said.
Flight tracker data indicated the plane made a sudden drop from cruising altitude at 33,000 feet down to 15,000 feet, before making an emergency landing at an airport in Tabuk, in northern Saudi Arabia.
A video circulated widely on Israeli news outlets showed an injured passenger saying in Hebrew that “we’re in the middle of a plane hijacking.”
“We’ve just subdued the terrorists; we are about to land. Anyone who can hear me, we need help,” the unidentified passenger in the video said.
Tzvika Manes, one of the Israeli passengers aboard the flight, told Kan public television that his wife heard screams from the cockpit. “Another crew member entered the cockpit and then we saw the stabs and he was thrown out,” he said.
“Three of us jumped on him and neutralized him,” he said, and then bound the attacker with corded headphones. One of the pilots was reportedly wounded by the assailant.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said in a statement that the incident was an “attempted jihadist terror attack that was thwarted thanks to the heroism of a number of passengers.” Israeli news outlets reported that the assailant was from the Gulf Arab country of Oman, which doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Mr. Netanyahu said hours after the plane landed in Saudi Arabia that “the pilot who did the stabbing was arrested and is being interrogated by Saudi authorities.”
Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have diplomatic relations, but Saudi Arabia began allowing flights to and from Israel to fly through its airspace in 2020, shortly after Israel and the UAE normalized diplomatic relations by signing the Abraham Accords.
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“I salute these heroes who demonstrated exceptional resourcefulness and courage,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said.
A separate FlyDubai aircraft with the passengers from Flight 1073 landed in Israel Wednesday evening. Its approach and touchdown at Ben Gurion International Airport outside of Tel Aviv were followed live on all of Israel’s national television channels.
