Co-pilot stabs captain, tries to crash FlyDubai flight en route to Israel
CBS News · LC · trust 67/100
Updated on: October 1, 2026 / 11:38 AM EDT / CBS/AP
A FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Israel was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after a violent attempt by the co-pilot to seize control of the aircraft and crash it, passengers and Israeli officials said.
"As they were approaching Israel, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot and apparently attempted to crash the plane with everyone on board," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement, lauding passengers and other crew members who intervened. The prime minister said he instructed Israel's "security establishment to prepare for potential additional threats."
Speaking Thursday to Fox News, Netanyahu said Israel knew the co-pilot "underwent Islamist radical indoctrination," based on "personal information" gathered during ongoing questioning.
An Israeli security official told CBS News authorities were investigating the possibility that the incident could have been an attempted Sept. 11-style terror attack, and whether the attacker was working alone.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called it "an attempted jihadist terror attack, which was thwarted only thanks to the heroism of several Israeli passengers who broke into the cockpit, overpowered the terrorist, and with their own hands returned control of the aircraft to an additional flight crew that was present," according to a statement.
However, in an interview with CBS News later Wednesday, Netanyahu indicated that the co-pilot's motive was still unknown.
"This guy was trying to jam the equipment between the two flight seats, the pilot seats," Netanyahu said, referencing witness accounts. "He wasn't sitting in the pilot seat trying to stabilize the plane, he was trying to jam the equipment."
The plane diverted to make an emergency landing in Tabuk, where there is a civilian airport adjacent to a Saudi military base. No passengers were injured in the incident, but the pilot who was attacked by his fellow crew member reportedly sustained stab wounds, and Saudi authorities said two crew members were hospitalized with unspecified injuries.
Passenger Asaf Rajuan has been credited with fighting off the attacker in the cockpit before two off-duty pilots took control of the plane.
"Whoever is hearing me, we need help," Rajuan said in a video posted to social media from the plane after the co-pilot had been subdued. "We are in the Tabuk area of Saudi Arabia, which we don't know. All the passengers are OK, but not the pilot. We need help."
According to Netanyahu, the pilot who carried out the stabbing was placed under arrest and was "being questioned by the Saudi authorities." An Omani official confirmed to CBS News that the attacker was born in Oman and currently holds Omani citizenship, but the Omani government has not publicly confirmed his nationality.
In a social media post , the Israel Foreign Ministry identified the wounded pilot as Capt. Smit Machchhar, an Indian national. It described him as a "hero" who "fought back after being stabbed in the cockpit."
According to the foreign ministry, Machchhar unlocked the cockpit door to allow passengers and crew to enter and intervene.
"Together, their extraordinary courage saved 174 lives," the foreign ministry said.
In a brief statement posted online Thursday, India's Ambassador to the UAE Deepak Mittal said he was "very reassured" after meeting Machchhar. The Indian embassy said in a separate post that the pilot was "in good health and recovering well."
The plane landed in Tel Aviv shortly before 8 p.m. local time on Wednesday. People could be heard singing and chanting as the passengers disembarked. Family members came to the airport to celebrate their loved ones' safe return.
One passenger said the plane dropped "very, very sharply suddenly" multiple times before balancing out. Passenger Miryam Shira Ohayon said the plane was "pretty much out of control" when the stabbing took place over Jordan.
"The co-pilot tried to murder the pilot and basically carry out a suicide attack on the plane," she told reporters by speakerphone held up by her mother, who was waiting at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. "It was really on the way to crashing, and it was simply the resourcefulness of many people who took control of the co-pilot and neutralized him."
"There was also a doctor who gave first aid, and people who treated both of them. Other than the pilot, there were no injuries, but the bigger fear was really a crash, which is exactly what he was trying to do," Ohayon said.
Another passenger told The Jerusalem Post that intervening passengers shouted at two off-duty pilots at the back of the plane "to run and take control" of it, and one of them did so after the passengers managed to remove the attacker from the cockpit.
One passenger seated at the front of the plane said a "group of young people fought" with the attacker.
The crew of FlyDubai flight 1073, a Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, transmitted an emergency alert shortly after takeoff on Wednesday, according to publicly available flight tracking information. CBS News' British partner network BBC News said flight tracking data showed the aircraft plummeted more than 17,000 feet in two minutes around 8:21 a.m. local time.
The Israeli Air Force was first to notice something was wrong, an Israeli official with direct knowledge of the situation told CBS News. The air force noticed the flight deviating from its flight path and descending at an alarming rate, the official said. When it tried to contact the plane, it received no response. It then got the emergency alert that specified a hijacking, not just a distress call.
At that point, according to the official, the flight was still several hundred miles from Israeli airspace. However, even 90 seconds or so into the incident, the air force feared a 9/11-style attack, so it immediately made the decision to close Israeli airspace, and seconds after that it scrambled several…
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