A pilot brawl, then a rapid descent: passengers recount chaos on Flydubai flight

When Flydubai flight FZ1073 suddenly plunged from more than 9,000m on Wednesday, passenger Almog Italie said it felt like the plane was passing through “massive turbulence” before he realised a life-or-death struggle had unfolded ​in the cockpit.Italie described passengers running to the front of the cabin and commotion in front of the cockpit, where Israeli officials said the co-pilot had stabbed the captain to try to crash the plane flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv with more than 170 Israelis on board.“It was dropping like for 20, 30 seconds, and then balanced, and then started dropping again, and ​balanced again, and then we saw that [there] are people in the front, directly [in front of ] the cockpit,” he told Reuters news agency. “Crew members and passengers from the front of the aeroplane took over and ⁠got control of the two pilots.”Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office, said the wounded captain, bloodied and lying on the floor, ‌had ‌drawn ​on “the last moments of his energy” to click open the release on the cockpit door.READ MORE“At that moment, some of the passengers that realised something was happening raced forward, entered the pilot’s cabin. They saw the injured pilot on the ⁠ground, and the other ... the attacking pilot was standing over the ​control panel, bashing the control panel,” he said.A passenger subdued the attacker, he ​said.A video filmed on board and verified by Reuters captured the aftermath.In it, two wounded men are seen lying on the floor, both bloodied. A voice speaking ‌in Hebrew off camera says one of them is the ​pilot “they tried to murder”. A voice off camera identifies the other as the attacker, lying on his side with three stripes on his epaulette, indicating he is a co-pilot.“We were attacked now, on this aeroplane, ⁠they tried to murder the pilot, and ​we took control of the team/staff,” a man in a black shirt with blood on his face says.Another man says: “We’re standing here, no one is going to pass through the pilot’s door.”🔴 Vol FlyDubai : « Nous avons été attaqués et nous surveillons le pilote »Une nouvelle vidéo montre les instants suivant l’intervention des passagers à bord du vol FlyDubai Dubaï–Tel-Aviv. « Nous avons été attaqués et nous surveillons le pilote ici », affirme un homme dans la… pic.twitter.com/KYxU0tl8tL— i24NEWS Français (@i24NEWS_FR) September 30, 2026 [ Netanyahu says pilot tried to stab co-pilot on flight bound for IsraelOpens in new window ]A reserve Flydubai crew that had been on board took control of the plane and landed it safely at Tabuk Airport (TUU), a Flydubai spokesperson said.A playback of the flight posted on flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed the plane cruising at 10,300m heading westwards over Saudi Arabia when it dropped more than 4,000m in 30 seconds, before veering northwest. It briefly crossed into Jordan, then returned to Saudi airspace and flew to Tabuk.Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said the attempted attack “was thwarted solely thanks to the ‌heroism of several Israeli passengers who stormed ⁠the cockpit, subdued the terrorist, and – with their own hands – restored control of the aircraft to an additional flight crew present on board”.“According to our preliminary information, the terrorist had a single objective: to crash the plane,” he said in a statement.Flydubai said in a statement the underlying reasons for the event remained unknown and warned against “premature speculation”. Italie said the reserve crew “took over the aeroplane and balanced it”.“It was quite scary, but not for long. Most of ​the passengers kept calm and were very supportive to each other. And when then we landed in Saudi ​Arabia, which we got a very very warm welcome with a lot of medical staff and food and anything we needed,” he said. Spielman, Netanyahu’s spokesperson, said Israel will increase security checks on pilots flying into the country. Netanyahu said Saudi authorities arrested and interrogated the co-pilot. Some 169 of the total 172 passengers on board were Israeli nationals, ambassador Daniel Meron at ​the Israeli permanent mission in Geneva told Reuters.The incident has sharpened questions about how pilots flying in and out of Israel and around the conflict-hit Middle East are vetted and what sorts of security protocols they face.“Every pilot that is going to be flying into Israel, we are going to know the pilots’ identities, know who they are, and do some type of security check,” said Spielman.He said Netanyahu ​had instructed authorities to “ramp up security” on flights to Israel operated by Israeli and non-Israeli carriers.“Anywhere that an Israeli is going to be flying into Israel. Our job right now is to do our best – even if they’re not on Israeli airlines – to make ‌sure that those security procedures are much higher,” Spielman said.The United Arab Emirates ​civil aviation regulator, the GCAA, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on how its pilots are vetted.Two pilots working in the Middle East but not for Flydubai told Reuters that pilots have to go through the same security screenings as passengers, meaning they would not be able to bring weapons such as knives or guns on board.Reuters could not determine what weapon was used by the pilot to stab the other. Passengers on board the flight have reported that a man was ‌holding a knife while one of the pilots lay bloodied. A pilot flying in the region but not for Flydubai told Reuters that pilots might have access to metal knives from a meal service or a crash ​axe available in most cockpits. – Reuters[ Kicked out of Dubai: where will Christy Kinahan snr go now?Opens in new window ]