FlyDubai flight diverted: pilot arrested in Saudi Arabia after altercation in cockpit

The Israeli Prime Minister announced Wednesday that one of the pilots of the plane between Dubai and Tel Aviv forced to make an emergency landing had been arrested and was being questioned by Saudi authorities.

What happened on the FlyDubai flight to Tel Aviv on Wednesday September 30? The plane had to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, following an "incident en route", the airline announced. The Israeli Prime Minister announced that one of the pilots of the FlyDubai flight, the one accused of stabbing his co-pilot, had been arrested and was being questioned by Saudi authorities. “During the flight, as they approached our country, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot, and apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address. Passengers were able to resume their journey aboard a new aircraft on Wednesday afternoon.

An altercation between the pilots in the cockpit. According to the first versions, the co-pilot would have tried to rush the plane to the ground. The pilot then allegedly tried to control him with a knife, supported in the fight by passengers. According to Tabuk airport in the northwest of the kingdom, where the plane landed, the pilot and co-pilot were injured and were hospitalized. According to Israeli press reports, two other pilots, who were on the flight as passengers, took control of the plane and landed it.

“We saw blood.” “My daughter called me (...). She said that a pilot had tried to kill the other pilot with a knife,” Yasmine Abécassis told AFP while waiting for her daughter to return to Tel Aviv airport. “We heard screams in the plane. Afterwards they opened the cockpit and we saw blood, and that someone had stabbed the pilot with a pocket knife,” a passenger on the flight testified in a written message to Channel 12.

No hypotheses excluded, including “terrorist”. A “terrorist tried to crash a plane to assassinate the 180 Israelis who were on board,” far-right Israeli Minister Itamar Ben Gvir then declared at midday. This diversion of the plane comes in the middle of a regional conflict but also in the run-up to elections in Israel. “The serious incident on board the Flydubai flight was an attempted jihadist terrorist attack,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

The Israeli Prime Minister announced that one of the pilots of the FlyDubai flight forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, accused of stabbing his co-pilot, had been arrested and was being questioned by Saudi authorities. “We are in constant contact with the authorities” of Saudi Arabia, Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address, adding that he had “ordered the [Israeli] security services to prepare for any additional potential threats.”

Israeli authorities believe that one of the pilots of the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, which had to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, could have deliberately tried to crash the plane, an Israeli official told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. According to an Israeli source cited by the daily, "the pilot suspected of being the author of this act is of Omani origin, a country with which Israel does not maintain diplomatic relations." The co-pilot “would be from India”, this source further specifies to the newspaper.

A witness cited by Haaretz explains that passengers seated at the front of the plane burst into the cockpit after realizing something was wrong. “An hour before landing, we felt that the plane was out of control, that it was starting to jump,” she explained. “The men saw that the plane had started to nosedive and burst into the cockpit.”

Two other witnesses interviewed by the Israeli channel Channel 12 News and cited by Haaretz say that "people started shouting". “Then the plane started to pitch,” they add. “We understood that the pilots had lost control because one of them had been stabbed.”