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A flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on September 30 after the co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain, triggering emergency signals and sending the Boeing 737 into a sharp descent in what Israeli officials are investigating as a possible terror attack.
Flight FZ1073 departed Dubai International Airport at about 3:05 a.m. UTC and climbed to roughly 34,000 feet, according to flight-tracking data. About two and a half hours into the flight, the plane suddenly began losing altitude, dropping from about 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in under a minute before climbing again.
The aircraft then continued toward the Saudi-Jordanian border at about 15,000 feet. Flight-tracking data later showed that the plane had accelerated sharply during the plunge, consistent with the dramatic descent described by passengers.
At 5:28 a.m. UTC, the plane transmitted the international emergency code 7700. About six minutes later, it switched to code 7500, which indicates unlawful interference and can be used when an aircraft is being hijacked. The plane briefly entered Jordanian airspace before turning back toward Saudi Arabia, later switching to the general emergency code again as it approached Tabuk.
The unusual flight path and the 7500 signal prompted Israeli authorities to fear that the plane could have been hijacked. Israel scrambled fighter jets as officials sought to determine what was happening aboard the flight, which was carrying Israeli passengers. The plane ultimately landed safely at Tabuk Airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia.
Passengers later described screams and a struggle near the cockpit. One passenger told Channel 12 that passengers heard screams, saw blood in the cockpit and saw that one of the pilots had been stabbed with a pocketknife. Other passengers reported that people aboard the plane helped restrain the attacker.
The emerging account from Israeli security officials went further than an ordinary fight between pilots. A senior Israeli official told Channel 12 that a “major disaster” had been averted and said there were growing indications that the co-pilot had tried to take control of the plane in order to crash it.
Israeli officials are now investigating the episode as a possible terror attack rather than simply a personal altercation or mental-health incident.
Israeli media reports identified the suspected attacker as an Omani national and the captain as Emirati, although early reports about the pilots’ nationalities conflicted.
Tabuk Airport said both the captain and co-pilot were injured and taken to a hospital for treatment. It said air traffic control received a distress call requesting an emergency landing at 8:44 a.m. local time and that the plane landed safely about an hour later. All passengers were accounted for, and airport authorities coordinated with flydubai to arrange their onward travel.
Flydubai confirmed that Flight FZ1073 had experienced an incident while traveling from Dubai to Ben Gurion Airport and said it had landed safely in Tabuk with all passengers accounted for. The airline noted that it was cooperating with authorities and would provide further information as confirmed details became available.
The circumstances and motive behind the confrontation remained under investigation. Israel’s government initially said the incident was not believed to have been a conventional hijacking, while Israeli officials later told Reuters that they believed the episode may have been an attempted attack targeting Israelis. The officials said that assessment was still preliminary.
Images taken after the landing also appeared to show damage to the plane’s rudder, with part of the vertical stabilizer missing. The Times of Israel reported that a former Israeli flight-security official believed the damage could have resulted from the aircraft’s rapid descent, though that was an assessment rather than an established finding.
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The incident came just a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel’s enemies could attempt an attack ahead of the country’s October 27 election.
Speaking during a visit to the Tel Nof air base, Netanyahu said, “We have indications that, ahead of the elections, our enemies will try to attack us,” and warned, “Don’t mess with us — not now, and not ever.” He did not provide details about the threat, however.
Netanyahu later met with opposition leader Yair Lapid to brief him on the security concerns. After the flydubai incident, Lapid said that nothing resembling the plane incident had been raised during that briefing.
“Nothing even remotely resembling this morning’s plane incident came up in the security briefing with the prime minister last night. Nothing similar, nothing reminiscent of it, not even a hint,” Lapid said.
He also accused the government of using the episode to fuel a political narrative, saying that “the whole spin that the mouthpieces are pushing now only proves what was already clear yesterday — that once again they are trying to play cheap politics at the expense of Israel’s security.”
While the exact circumstances of Flight FZ1073 remain unclear, the timing, coming right after Netanyahu’s warning, is highly questionable. As Lapid noted, the incident is already being used to bolster the Israeli prime minister’s political narrative, and Netanyahu could exploit it as a pretext to escalate, particularly against Iran.
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