Co-pilot stabs pilot on Flydubai flight, plane drops 17,000 feet

A Flydubai co-pilot stabbed the pilot of a Dubai-to-Tel Aviv flight on 30 September 2026 and apparently tried to crash the aircraft, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, prompting the jet to drop more than 17,000 feet in under two minutes before passengers and off-duty pilots regained control and landed it at Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. The flight carried at least 150 people, and Netanyahu said almost all passengers were Israeli.bbc.co.uk+1

The incident matters because it is the first serious attempt to crash an Israeli-bound commercial flight in decades, and because the attacker sat in the cockpit as a member of the operating crew. Israeli officials framed it as a thwarted terror attack, while Flydubai said the underlying motive remained unknown and under formal investigation. The event also triggered fighter jet scrambles and new security orders in Israel.france24.com

What the flight tracking shows

Minutes after the rapid descent, the plane transmitted emergency code squawk 7700, then switched to squawk 7500, which reports a hijacking. At 05:40 GMT the aircraft, which had briefly entered Jordanian airspace, looped back into Saudi Arabia and began a manual descent. It touched down at Tabuk Airport at 06:58 GMT, according to location data, after transmitting three emergency signals, one indicating possible unlawful interference.theguardian.com

Passenger accounts describe how the cockpit was retaken. Zvika Meness told Israeli public broadcaster Kan News that an additional crew member who was also a pilot entered the cockpit, at which point passengers saw the stabbing. Meness said he and two others restrained the attacker: "We jumped on him; three of us jumped on him forcefully, and we tied him up with his own zip ties and with the multimedia headphones." Another pilot in the passenger cabin then went in to help land the plane.

How passengers regained the cockpit

Passenger Miryam Shira Ohayon said the plane was "pretty much out of control" during the attack over Jordan. "The co-pilot tried to murder the pilot and basically carry out a suicide attack on the plane," she told reporters. Yasmin Abukasis said her daughter said a man with a knife forced one of the pilots to the floor and that there was blood everywhere. The captain and first officer were injured and taken to hospital, the company owning the Saudi airport said.

Israeli officials described the event in security terms. Netanyahu called it "an extremely severe security incident" and said the attacker was arrested and being questioned by Saudi authorities. Defence Minister Israel Katz called it "an attempted jihadist terror attack, which was thwarted only thanks to the heroism of several Israeli passengers who broke into the cockpit." Flydubai said only that "an altercation occurred in the flight deck" and that motives remained unknown pending investigation.

Israeli and Saudi air forces dispatched fighter jets, and Israel scrambled warplanes fearing a hijacking of a plane carrying dozens of Israeli citizens. Netanyahu ordered security ramped up on Israeli and non-Israeli carriers. Saudi Arabia rejected an Israeli request to allow military planes to collect the Israeli passengers, two security sources said; Israel and Saudi Arabia have no diplomatic relations. US Attorney-General Todd Blanche said the United States was coordinating closely with Israel.

Where the investigation stands

Flydubai deployed two replacement aircraft to Tabuk to relieve passengers and crew, though many Israeli passengers said they would not reboard a Flydubai plane. The repatriation flight left Tabuk at 17:40 local time (14:40 GMT) and arrived in Tel Aviv at around 18:40 local time (15:40 GMT) on 30 September 2026. A second Flydubai flight, FZ1081, also landed in Tel Aviv that afternoon after briefly diverting toward the UAE.

Netanyahu instructed Israel's security establishment to prepare for potential additional threats and said Israeli forces were in close contact with relevant authorities. The attacker remains in Saudi custody for questioning, and Flydubai said its priority was supporting the official investigation into the flight deck altercation. The next development expected is the outcome of that formal investigation and any charges filed by Saudi authorities against the arrested pilot.