A Flydubai jet flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv lost roughly 4,300 meters (about 14,100 feet) of altitude in around 30 seconds on Wednesday after the co-pilot stabbed the captain and, according to the Israeli government, tried to crash the plane. Passengers and crew overpowered the attacker, and flight FZ1073 made an emergency landing in Tabuk, in northern Saudi Arabia. No one was killed.
The episode drew in three governments within hours. Israel's defense minister, Israel Katz, called it a "jihadist terrorist attack attempt". Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot, an Omani national, was detained and interrogated by Saudi Arabia, suspended all Flydubai flights to Israel and put Israeli airspace on alert. The airline, owned by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, confirmed an "incident" and said it is cooperating with the authorities. Saudi Arabia, which has no diplomatic relations with Israel, turned down an Israeli request for fighter jets to escort the landing; Israeli media report that the Mossad, Israel's main intelligence agency, is also investigating.
For Brazil, the case arrives through the door of aviation security. Cockpit access rules and pilot screening follow standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations agency for the sector, which are applied in Brazil by the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC). The best-known precedent is Germanwings Flight 9525, deliberately crashed by co-pilot Andreas Lubitz in the French Alps in 2015, killing all 150 people aboard. Dubai is also one of the main connecting hubs for Brazilians traveling to the Middle East and Asia: Emirates, which like Flydubai belongs to the emirate, flies nonstop between Dubai and São Paulo. There is no information so far about Brazilians among the passengers of the attacked flight.
Panic on board
Netanyahu described the attack in a public statement and called the passengers who intervened "heroes":
"During the flight, as they approached Israel, one of the pilots stabbed the other and apparently tried to bring down the plane with the passengers on board."
According to the prime minister, an Israeli passenger said he broke into the cockpit with a crew member and subdued the attacker while he tried to sabotage the aircraft's systems. In a video recorded for relatives, Israeli passenger Itzhak Liber said "a deranged man with a knife stabbed one of the pilots". Yasmin Abukasis, the mother of passenger Miriam, told the Reuters news agency that her daughter heard cries for help coming from the cockpit. "The plane started to lose control. Then all the passengers started screaming, they thought they were going to fall," she told the Associated Press. A passenger quoted by The Jerusalem Post said he shouted for two pilots traveling in the rear of the aircraft to take the controls, which they did; a dentist on board gave first aid to the wounded captain.
Landing in Tabuk and the flight home
The aircraft had been emitting emergency codes since it crossed Jordanian airspace, including the international hijack code, according to data from the Flightradar24 tracking site cited by the BBC and by the Brazilian news site G1. In Tabuk, the captain and the co-pilot were hospitalized, according to the airport's operator. A repatriation flight took off at 5:40 p.m. local time (10:40 a.m. in Brasília) and landed at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, where crews from Israel's Magen David Adom ambulance service were waiting. "Only one person needed hospital care. She was injured during the turmoil on board and had wrist injuries," said Arye Myers of the organization, who described passengers crying and relieved as they stepped off the plane.
The passenger count varies between sources: the BBC reported 150 people aboard; the Israeli government, quoted by G1, said there were 180, of whom 100 were Israeli citizens, a figure used by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to claim the goal was to "murder the Israelis on board". The Dubai-Tel Aviv route, flown daily by Flydubai and heavily used by Israelis, has existed since the Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel and the UAE in 2020. Hours after the attack, a second Flydubai flight toward Tel Aviv made a brief diversion before resuming its route, according to Flightradar24. The investigation remains open.