Flight to Israel falls 1000s of feet in seconds during mid-air fight between pilots

A plane flying from Dubai to Israel plunged thousands of feet in less than a minute after the co-pilot reportedly tried to crash the aircraft. The FlyDubai plane carrying 174 passengers, including 27 children, took off from the United Arab Emirates early on Wednesday morning, scheduled to land at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. However, about an hour an a half into the flight, while over Jordanian airspace, the Boeing 737 MAX 8 suddenly dropped 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds, the flight-tracking site Flightradar24 showed. (Anadolu via Getty Images) The plane issued a 7700 signal indicating a general emergency and suddenly diverted towards Saudi Arabia. Several minutes later it transmitted a 7500 signal indicating a possible hijacking, prompting Israel to scramble fighter jets. The Israeli Prime Minister’s office later said it was not believed to have been a hijacking. Before #FZ1073 changed its squawk to 7700, we observed extreme fluctuations in the transmitted altitude data, with calculated vertical speeds ranging from approximately -30,000 to +10,000 ft/min.For context, vertical speeds during normal operations rarely exceed ±4,000 ft/min.… pic.twitter.com/Zgyn0iQ33a— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) September 30, 2026 An Israeli ‌official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that ‌the pilots had transmitted the emergency signals after getting into a physical altercation with each other. The plane briefly disappeared from public flight-tracking services but reappeared. It landed safely ⁠at Tabuk airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia, Flightradar24 said. However, Israeli authorities are examining whether one of the pilots attempted to deliberately crash the aircraft in an apparent suicide attempt, and was only prevented from doing so by the second pilot and passengers. A potential terrorist attack is also under investigation. Photos are circulating reportedly of a passenger who, along with other passengers, managed to subdue one of the pilots on board Flydubai flight FZ1073.An Israeli official said there was suspicion that one pilot may have tried to crash the aircraft before the other pilot, with… pic.twitter.com/hS08XIM8Lf— Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) September 30, 2026 According to Israeli media, there was a second team of pilots in civilian clothes on the plane that managed to stop one of the pilots taking over the aircraft. A senior Israeli official told Channel 12 that if the pilots had not been on the plane, the incident could have ended in another 9/11. The official said: “A major disaster was avoided. There are increasing indications that the pilot wanted to take control of the plane and crash it with the passengers.” The report has not been confirmed. The pilot is being questioned. FlyDubai said it had opened an investigation into the incident and all passengers were safe and accounted ⁠for. “It wasn’t something innocent,” another official told the Israeli news site Ynet. Israeli media published a photo apparently taken from inside the plane, which appears to show one passenger wearing a blood-soaked shirt. One of the passengers on the plane told Channel 12: “There were moments when we were sure this was the end. We heard shouting and screaming, and then we saw that the cockpit was being opened and there was blood there.” Yasmin Abu Kasis, whose daughter Miriam was on the flight, told Reuters that she had heard screaming and that a man holding a knife had forced one of the pilots onto the floor, and that there was blood everywhere. This is a breaking news story and is being updated Shorts