The co-pilot of the Flydubai flight may have switched off the Boeing 737 engines during the fight

The co-pilot who attacked the captain of a Flydubai plane on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv could have switched off both engines of the Boeing 737 during the incident, writes the Italian Corriere della Sera.

According to the publication, one of the videos taken by passengers shows how the emergency lighting in the cabin is turned on.

“One of the videos, filmed between the seats in the midst of trying to stop the first officer, shows the interior emergency lights turning on,” Corriere writes.

As the newspaper notes, citing two Boeing 737 commanders, emergency lighting turns on when the plane loses its main power source and switches to battery power. According to them, this can happen if the generators or both engines are turned off.

“Therefore, the aviation portion of the investigation is attempting to determine whether the first officer also moved the two kerosene switches to the engines from the Run to Cutoff position,” according to the publication, which recreates the chronology of the attack.

The publication notes that such a scenario was previously recorded during the crash of an Air India plane in June 2025, but then the plane crash occurred a few seconds after takeoff.

On Wednesday, a Flydubai plane flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv signaled an emergency and some time later made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The airline later confirmed that a fight broke out between the pilots during the flight.

Later, information appeared in the media that one of the pilots injured the second and wanted to cause a plane crash. This information was confirmed to RIA Novosti by passengers on that flight. Israeli authorities called the incident an attempted terrorist attack.