Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a pilot on a Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv stabbed the other pilot as the aircraft approached Israel and attempted to bring the plane down with everyone on board, according to his public remarks carried by Fox News and the Washington Examiner.
“This morning there was an extremely serious security incident on a flight from Dubai to Israel,” Netanyahu said in the address circulated by Fox News (@FoxNews). “Nearly all the passengers on the flight were Israelis. During the flight, as they were approaching Israel, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot and apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board.”
According to the same address, a passenger told Netanyahu the plane entered a spin and began to dive. The prime minister said the passenger somehow broke into the cockpit along with a crew member, and the two subdued the pilot accused of the stabbing. Additional aircrew then entered the cockpit and stabilized the aircraft, he said.
“I salute these heroes who showed exceptional resourcefulness and courage,” Netanyahu said. “They saved many lives. They prevented a terrible disaster.”
The Israeli prime minister said the plane landed safely at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia and that all passengers were out of danger. He said the pilot who carried out the stabbing was detained and is being questioned by Saudi authorities.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in remarks quoted by Fox News and attributed to preliminary information that the co-pilot who stabbed the captain acted intentionally and intended to crash the plane. Fox News (@FoxNews) carried that account in a breaking post, and the network's on-air report described the incident as involving FlyDubai Flight FZ-1073, which had been flying for roughly two and a half hours before signaling an emergency on board while in Jordanian airspace.
According to that Fox News report, the aircraft then descended abruptly by sixteen thousand feet. Israel scrambled fighter jets, fearing the plane had been hijacked, before the flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia and landed safely. The report also cited an Israeli pilot who said he expects the incident to lead to changes for air travel.
The Examiner account (@dcexaminer) carried Netanyahu's description of the sequence — the stabbing, the dive, the passenger and crew member forcing their way into the cockpit, the additional flight crew stabilizing the aircraft, and the landing in Saudi Arabia — and noted reports that passengers were being moved onto a different plane to be flown back to Tel Aviv, with families waiting for information at Ben Gurion airport.
A passenger video described by OANN (@OANN) shows the chaotic aftermath aboard the flight bound for Tel Aviv after the cockpit altercation forced the diversion to Saudi Arabia. The description of the footage is an observation of what the video shows, not an independent account of the events it depicts.
The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) reported that the Israel-bound flight made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after plunging thousands of feet and sparking concerns of a hijacking incident among passengers, and that passengers and Israeli officials described a bloody cockpit altercation.
NBC News (@NBCNews) reported that a pilot on the diverted flight stabbed his fellow pilot in what Netanyahu described as an apparent attempt to crash the plane. The account matches what the prime minister said in his address without adding further detail on the sequence.
Coverage of the same subject from other outlets has followed a similar outline. CNN reported that the Flydubai flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia after a struggle in the cockpit in what the Israeli prime minister called “a most serious security incident.” The Guardian reported that Israeli officials are investigating whether the incident, which forced the emergency landing, was an attempted terror attack. The BBC reported that Netanyahu commended the “heroes” who helped “stabilize the aircraft” as passengers described intervening to stop the violent cockpit attack. CBS News reported that Israeli officials described an “attempted jihadist terror attack” by a FlyDubai pilot who allegedly stabbed his fellow cockpit crewmember, with passengers helping to thwart it. A separate account carried by an Israeli outlet described an official saying a “major disaster” was avoided after a pilot stabbed his co-pilot and attempted to hijack the aircraft carrying more than one hundred Israeli passengers.
Next News Network could not independently verify the claims described in this report.
What is not yet established is the full picture of what happened in the cockpit, what the detained pilot's status is beyond Saudi questioning, and how the passengers were ultimately returned to Israel. The flight route described in the Fox News report — a Dubai-to-Tel Aviv service that signaled an emergency in Jordanian airspace, descended sharply, drew scrambled Israeli fighter jets, and landed at Tabuk — is the outline shared across the accounts reviewed. The characterization of the pilot's intent rests on the preliminary assessment Katz described and on Netanyahu's address, not on documentation that has been made public.
Families of passengers were reported to be gathering at Ben Gurion airport seeking information as they waited for the travelers to be brought home, according to the Examiner account. The route back, the timing, and the handling of the detained pilot are all matters that remained in motion as of the statements reviewed.
Our Take
The reaction to this story has run across the whole spectrum — conservative outlets, the Israeli government's own messaging, and the legacy networks — and each faction has reached for the frame that suits it. What the public actually has right now is a prime minister's address, a defense minister's preliminary assessment, and passenger footage of the aftermath. That is a serious set of claims, and the man at the center of them is in Saudi custody rather than in a courtroom. The passengers who reportedly broke down the cockpit door and helped wrestle the aircraft back under control did not wait for a threat assessment or a cable-news panel before they acted, and whatever the investigation ultimately concludes, that is the part of this story that deserves the most attention and the least spin.
