Israeli authorities are investigating a suspected attempt at a terrorist attack aboard a commercial airplane carrying about 160 passengers to Israel. A pilot was stabbed during the flight. The aircraft issued a generalized emergency signal, abruptly changed course, and landed in Saudi Arabia. Here is what is known about the case:
What happened?
A fight between pilots of a commercial plane traveling from the United Arab Emirates to Israel forced the aircraft to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The episode raised concerns about a possible hijacking of the aircraft, which was carrying dozens of Israelis, and led Israel to dispatch warplanes.
Approximately two and a half hours after departing Dubai, the plane issued an emergency alert. The flight descended abruptly from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet (about 10,000 meters to 5,100 meters) in one minute, before making an erratic circle near the Jordanian border and finally landing in Tabuk about an hour later, according to Flightradar24.
How many people were on board?
Israeli authorities said the aircraft carried between 160 and 180 passengers.
Who was injured and what caused the fight?
An Israeli official told the Associated Press that a fight began between two pilots, and one of them was stabbed.
The Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk said in a statement that the captain and the aircraft’s first officer were injured and taken to a hospital. There is no information yet on their condition. Police are also investigating what may have motivated the fight.
What are the authorities saying?
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the situation was under control and that Israel was working to bring the passengers home. “The crew was questioned as part of the investigation,” added a regional official, without indicating whether anyone had been detained.
The prime minister has warned in recent days about unspecified security threats and rising. The country is a few days away from marking the anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel, weeks away from elections, and remains involved in multiple conflicts over the last three years.
Why is there suspicion of hijacking and a terrorist attack?
Israelis were targeted by a series of hijackings and aircraft attacks carried out by Palestinian militants in the 1960s and 1970s. Israel has not experienced a hijacking in decades, but maintains one of the world’s most stringent airport security systems, including on flights bound for Israel.
The emergency landing in Saudi Arabia was not the first time an aircraft carrying Israelis home landed there. The kingdom does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Israel, but ended its former ban on Israeli flights over its territory in 2022. Since then, Saudi Arabia has coordinated several emergency landings for Israeli passengers, including in 2023 when an airplane experienced an electrical fault .
The United Arab Emirates has become a popular holiday destination for Israeli tourists since the normalization of relations in 2020. FlyDubai is the low-cost sister airline of Emirates.
What do the passengers say?
Passengers aboard the FlyDubai flight told international press about the scenes of panic and horror experienced this Wednesday, the 30th.
Images from the cockpit released by Israeli media showed two injured and bleeding pilots, while a passenger stated that one of the pilots stabbed the other.
“We are protecting the pilot who was attacked; we are here so that no one passes through the door,” he says.
In an interview with the BBC, the mother of a passenger said her daughter reported hearing screams inside the plane and, subsequently, seeing a man grab a knife and throw the pilot to the floor. “There was blood everywhere,” she described.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, another passenger was filmed in a video recorded inside the plane with blood on his body.
“We are here, on a flight, and we have just subdued the terrorists. We are approaching the landing,” he said.
“If anyone can hear me: we need help. We will probably land in Tabuk, somewhere in Saudi Arabia. Everyone on the plane is safe and sound, except the pilot. We need help.”
Passengers also said that the pilots lost control of the aircraft before other passengers stormed the cockpit.
“The passengers began to scream. Then the plane started to swing from side to side. We understood that the pilots had lost control because one of them had been stabbed. He was severely injured. The plane simply began to descend rapidly. It was very frightening,” a passenger told Haaretz.
*With international agencies
