JERUSALEM, Sept 30: The co-pilot of a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv tried to crash the plane after stabbing the pilot, but passengers subdued him while other pilots landed the plane safely in Saudi Arabia, Israeli officials claimed on Wednesday.
Describing the event as “a highly severe security incident”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saudi authorities would interrogate the co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073 from the United Arab Emirates to Israel, which had more than 170 Israelis on board.
The airline said in a statement that the underlying reasons for the event remained unknown and warned against “premature speculation”. The cause of the altercation between the pilots was not clear.
The co-pilot, who an Israeli official identified as an Omani national, was arrested after the plane landed, Netanyahu said. Israel’s Transport Ministry said there would be a joint investigation of the incident with the defence establishment.
“All passengers are out of harm’s way,” Netanyahu said in a video statement released by his office. He also ordered tighter security on both Israeli and non-Israeli carriers flying into Israel.
The passengers departed Saudi Arabia for Israel aboard a flydubai replacement aircraft after eight hours on the ground.
Netanyahu quoted a passenger as saying that passengers along with a member of the crew broke into the cockpit after the aircraft “entered a tailspin and began to dive” and found the co-pilot “trying to sabotage the plane’s systems”.
The aircraft’s flight data showed it suddenly and rapidly descended by nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds before a first emergency signal was sent on Wednesday morning, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.
The incident heightened security fears in Israel weeks before Israelis vote in the first election since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks, with Israel’s security figuring prominently in the campaigning.
Israeli media published conflicting reports on the incident, with some outlets reporting that a pilot had tried to crash the passenger plane in an alleged suicide attempt. Some Israeli media outlets identified the pilots as Omani and Emirati nationals, while others said they were Russian and Ukrainian.
