Flydubai stabbing: How safe are planes if a pilot turns violent?
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x whatsapp-stroke copylink google Add Al Jazeera on Google info An Air France pilot stands in the cockpit of the airline's new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner passenger aircraft as it stands on the tarmac at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy, France, on December 2, 2016 [Benoit Tessier/Reuters] By Yashraj Sharma Published On 1 Oct 2026 1 Oct 2026 On Wednesday morning, a co-pilot aboard a Flydubai plane stabbed the captain in what is believed to have been a foiled attempt to crash the flight with more than 170 people on board, en route from Dubai to Israel’s Tel Aviv .
As the plane plunged , within a minute, to half its altitude amid the commotion as it approached Jordanian airspace, the captain managed to unlock the door to the cockpit, and a group of passengers and crew members stormed inside and overpowered the attacker, who was reportedly attempting to damage the controls.
The aircraft also emitted an emergency distress signal during the incident.
Another pilot on board managed to take control of the aircraft and land it safely in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk.
While the United Arab Emirates, the airline’s host country, has begun an investigation into what happened, Saudi authorities are questioning the co-pilot who allegedly attacked the captain. The attacker was also injured and is now in Saudi custody. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would follow the investigation and “possibly participate”.
Israel has claimed the incident on board the plane, the majority of whose passengers were Israeli, was a “terrorist” attack and an attempt to crash the aircraft.
Meanwhile, the incident on board Flydubai flight FZ1073 has raised a host of uncomfortable questions in the civil aviation industry, chief among them: how safe is a commercial aircraft when one of its own pilots turns violent?
Twenty-five years ago, the September 11 attacks on the United States, which killed nearly 3,000 people, changed the civil aviation industry.
That day, al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers took control of four commercial planes as they were in the air, crashing two into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center on Manhattan island, and another into the Pentagon. A fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers overwhelmed the hijackers.
The attacks transformed aviation security, which stepped up its focus on preventing unauthorised access to aircraft flight decks, as well as strengthening security and boarding procedures within airports.
Within months, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) had overhauled the global aviation rules, extending security measures for domestic flights and introducing bulletproof, reinforced cockpit doors, personnel vetting and airport identity checks.
The most consequential physical change was the reinforced, lockable cockpit door, designed to resist forcible intrusion, followed by a mandatory 100 percent screening of checked baggage.
Airports increased employee screening, baggage and cargo security, and aircraft protection, while ICAO introduced mandatory security audits to assess how countries were implementing the new global standards.
In 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525’s first officer Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit and deliberately flew the Airbus A320 they were piloting into the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.
France’s BEA determined that the aviation industry’s medical-certification system had failed to prevent a pilot experiencing a serious mental disorder from operating with a licence.
Following that incident, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) temporarily recommended that at least two authorised people remain in the cockpit at all times. But the following year, the EASA moved the rule to a risk-based approach only, allowing airlines to adopt equivalent safeguards based on operational risks.
The Germanwings incident also triggered broader measures in Europe: from 2018, airlines were required to conduct psychological assessments before pilots began flying and introduce psychoactive substance and alcohol testing.
Some flights also carry air marshals – or “in-flight security officers” – who are generally covert, armed law-enforcement officers placed on selected flights depending on a country’s threat assessment.
Cockpit doors are made to be particularly difficult to penetrate, as standard. On modern commercial aircraft, the cockpit door is built to be a heavy-duty composite structure mounted inside a reinforced frame, and electronically controlled, designed to resist forcible intrusion and penetration by small firearms. The cockpit door can usually only be opened from the inside.
On Boeing 737 aircraft, the flight-deck access system normally remains in AUTO mode during the flight, keeping the reinforced cockpit door locked. Cabin crew can ask pilots to grant them entry through the access system.
ICAO standards require that such doors can be locked or unlocked from either pilot station.
An emergency keypad also allows crew to initiate an emergency entry sequence to enter the cockpit. If a functioning pilot does not cancel the emergency request, the system would permit emergency access, but only after a built-in delay.
These systems…
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