A commercial jet traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv narrowly averted disaster Wednesday after the Omani co-pilot stabbed the captain with a pocket knife and attempted to crash the plane.
As Flydubai Flight 1073 approached Israel carrying 174–180 mostly Israeli passengers, it reportedly plummeted more than 14,000 feet in 30 seconds, 17,400 feet in less than two minutes, triggering a hijacking transponder code. Israel quickly scrambled fighter jets during the incident.
According to reports, the captain managed to open the release on the cockpit door as he lay bleeding on the floor, allowing passengers and crew to storm the cockpit and subdue the co-pilot as he was trying to sabotage the plane’s systems.
Two off-duty FlyDubai pilots onboard were able to land the Boeing 737 safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Both pilots were injured and taken to hospital, while no passengers were reported seriously hurt. The attacker was arrested and interrogated by Saudi authorities.
The name of the co-pilot has not been released but he has been identified in media reports as an Omani national.
Israeli officials, speaking anonymously to Reuters and CNN, identified him as an Omani citizen who has worked for flydubai for a relatively short time—around nine months or less than a year.
Oman has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel and has officially rejected normalization.
Israeli authorities are examining how the Omani co-pilot was screened and assigned to a Tel Aviv-bound flight, and Transportation Minister Miri Regev ordered a review of flydubai’s crew practices on Israeli routes.
The captain has been identified in media reports as Indian national Smit Machchhar (also spelled Machchar), a former SpiceJet pilot who joined flydubai in 2022. Flydubai itself has not confirmed either pilot’s identity or nationality.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and security officials have characterized the incident as an attempted “jihadist terrorist attack,” rather than a mental-health episode, though the motive has not been publicly established.
“All passengers are out of harm’s way,” Netanyahu said in a video statement released by his office. He added that the quick thinking passengers and crew “saved many lives” and “prevented a heavy disaster.”
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The prime minister also said he has ordered tighter security on both Israeli and non-Israeli carriers flying into Israel.
Hero passenger Yaniv Hayoun met with Netanyahu following the harrowing incident and described how he and other passengers stopped the attacker, saying that he put him in a chokehold and dragged him out of the cockpit before returning and grabbing the plane’s controls.
Hayoun described trying to get into the cockpit, where the stabbed pilot was up against the door making it hard to open at first.
Once he got in, Hayoun said he saw the attacker on the panel between the two seats.
“There were no pilots in the seats: one was on the floor, one was on the [panel],” Hayoun said, adding that he appeared to be trying to “disable the plane.”
“I called out to a bunch of Israelis on board, and two other guys came over. We pinned him down,” Hayoun said. “I jumped back, grabbed the controls, and started pulling back the handles.”
It all unfolded in seconds, he said.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said during a press conference Wednesday that there is no current threat against the United States.
“We take every incident like this very serious and we continue to look at the procedures that we have in place and continue to make sure the American people are safe,” Mullin told reporters.
He added that there were “no credible threats” to the United States and that an investigation into the incident was ongoing.
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