Israeli authorities are treating the violent incident aboard a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv as a terror attack, amid suspicion that the co-pilot stabbed the captain and planned to crash the plane with 174 passengers on board, according to Israeli media reports.
Israel Hayom reported that Israeli officials have defined the pilot as a terrorist, and that the incident, initially described as a fight between the pilots, is now assessed to have been an attempted attack. According to N12, Israeli authorities are treating the case as terrorism based on security assessments and passenger testimony, and the co-pilot allegedly stabbed the captain repeatedly before crew members and passengers broke through the cockpit door and subdued him.
According to Israeli media reports, the captain is Russian and the co-pilot Ukrainian. Accounts of the incident still conflict: Ynet, citing Israeli officials, reported that the pilot who was stabbed is believed to be the one who may have tried to crash the aircraft. Flydubai has not publicly confirmed which pilot attacked the other or commented on a terror motive, and the investigation is ongoing.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8, flight FZ1073, suddenly plunged about 18,000 feet in under two minutes over Saudi Arabia on Wednesday morning, before the crew transmitted emergency and hijack codes. Israel scrambled fighter jets, and the plane landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
"It felt like a terror attack in the middle of a flight," one passenger said in an interview with i24NEWS. "For whole minutes we thought: either we crash or we're murdered."
Passenger Miriam told i24NEWS she saw blood when the cockpit door opened. "I screamed 'Shema Yisrael,'" she said. "The Israelis neutralized the stabber together with the crew." A doctor and a nurse on board treated the wounded pilot.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz held urgent security consultations, and IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir held a situational assessment with the air force commander. The Prime Minister's Office said the incident was under control and that Israel was working to bring the passengers home.
Flydubai said it had opened an investigation, and that it would send a replacement aircraft from Dubai to Tabuk to fly the passengers, including 27 children, to Israel.
Meanwhile, Israel is considering sending its own aircraft to retrieve the passengers.
Yaron Avraham reports:
Senior Israeli official: There was another crew of pilots on the plane as part of a training exercise, and they took control of the situation. That's the luck of the flight - otherwise, we would have been in a situation like 9/11.
This is a developing story.
