Pilot stabbing on flight to Tel Aviv sparks hijack fears
Updated ,first published
London: A commercial aircraft flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv has made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after issuing an alert that sparked fears of a disaster when one of the two pilots stabbed the other in an apparent attempt to crash the plane.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the early evidence suggested that crew members and passengers responded to the attack by entering the cockpit and stopping the attacker, in an “extremely serious” security incident.
The midair crisis began when flydubai Flight FZ1073 suddenly lost altitude and issued an emergency alert more than two hours into its journey, leading the Israeli government to scramble fighter jets in response.
Netanyahu made his televised remarks on Wednesday afternoon in Israel (shortly after 11.30pm AEST) in the first official statement on the attacks by the Israeli government after hours of speculation about whether the incident was a hijacking, an altercation between pilots or a brutal attempt to kill all on board.
“I salute the heroes who demonstrated resourcefulness and extraordinary courage,” Netanyahu said.
“They saved many lives and averted a terrible disaster. The pilot who committed the stabbing has been arrested and is currently being interrogated by Saudi authorities.”
Netanyahu said he had spoken to a passenger and to officials who told him one of the pilots stabbed the other and apparently tried to crash the aircraft.
At least one passenger joined a crew member in breaking into the cockpit to stop the pilot attempting to damage the plan. Another crew member then joined them and managed to stabilise the plane, he said.
Public flight radar sites show that the Boeing 737 MAX was diverted to Saudi Arabia and landed about 90 minutes after a shocking plunge in altitude, with passengers describing “blood in the cockpit” after the fight on board.
“The most severe disaster was prevented,” one official told The Times of Israel. Another newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, cited an official who said the emergency almost became a major disaster.
Other air crew and passengers on board managed to subdue the pilot and bring him under control. Israeli media cited unnamed officials who said it was suspected that one of the pilots intended to crash the plane and there was a “growing assessment” that the emergency had been intended as an act of terror.
Other options were also being looked into, including the possibility of a mental health episode. Israeli, Saudi and Dubai authorities are yet to issue an official statement on the circumstances of the incident.
“We heard screams on the plane,” one passenger said in a text message to Israeli media network Channel 12 that was reported by The Times of Israel and other outlets.
“Then they opened the cockpit and we saw blood, and someone had stabbed the pilot with a pocketknife.”
In one video shared by one person on the flight, the captain is covered in blood as some passengers support him and praise him for saving the aircraft from disaster. A second member of the crew, possibly the other pilot, is seen tied up nearby and apparently unconscious.
The owner of Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk Airport said the captain and co-pilot were “found to have injuries” and taken to hospital.
Netanyahu called urgent meetings to monitor the emergency after the aircraft first issued a 7700 “squawk” code to signal an international emergency, before changing this to a 7500 code to signal a hijacking or unlawful interference, according to reports.
The Israel Defence Forces chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, held an assessment of the incident with senior officers, The Times of Israel reported.
The aircraft departed Dubai at 7.05am local time on Wednesday (1.05pm AEST) and initially flew over the southern part of the Persian Gulf before crossing over Saudi Arabia and heading towards Israel.
Fluctuations in its altitude began about two hours into the trip, according to Flightradar24. The plane then dropped 14,000 feet (4300 metres) in less than 30 seconds and issued its first alert about 2½ hours into the flight. The emergency lasted for the next 90 minutes before it turned out of Jordanian airspace and landed at Tabuk, a city in the far west of Saudi Arabia.
Earlier in the day, Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office, told Reuters the incident was not believed to have been a hijacking, describing it as a “different incident”. He did not immediately respond to a further request for comment on whether Israel was treating it as a “terror incident”.
Israeli journalist Amichai Stein reported an account of the emergency from those on board and posted images of one passenger with a blood-stained shirt.
“We heard screams and saw blood,” one passenger said, according to Stein. “The pilot was stabbed. There were moments when we thought we weren’t going to make it out alive.”
Stein is a contributor to The Jerusalem Post and the diplomatic correspondent for iNews24 in Tel Aviv.
The flight experienced “an incident while en route”, Flydubai said in a statement. All passengers were safe and accounted for, the spokesperson said, without providing further details.
The Israeli media said authorities were planning to question the crew and inspect the aircraft as part of an investigation into the scare.
The airline, which is owned by the investment arm of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, is expected to send another aircraft to the Saudi airport to transfer the passengers to Tel Aviv.
“For an hour, the whole of Israel held its breath as it looked like a Fly Dubai plane to Tel Aviv got hijacked over Saudi Arabia,” wrote Eylon Levy, a former Israeli government spokesman who is now a media presenter.
“Now it’s being reported the pilots got into a fight. The sonic boom from the sigh of relief can be heard in space.”
Israeli airspace was briefly closed during the emergency.
Netanyahu’s office issued a brief statement to reassure citizens.
“The incident is under control, and all measures are currently being deployed in order to return the Israeli passengers safely to Israel,” the prime minister’s office said.
With Reuters
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David Crowe is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.
