A bloodied passenger filmed an urgent appeal for help aboard Wednesday’s allegedly hijacked flight from Dubai to Israel, shortly after helping fellow travellers overpower a man armed with a knife.
According to an Israeli official, the pilot of the Flydubai jet allegedly attacked his co-pilot before attempting to seize control of the aircraft, reportedly intending to crash it.
“A major disaster was narrowly avoided,” the official told the Jerusalem Post, saying passengers managed to restrain the pilot and bring the situation under control.
Video shows the passenger who helped subdue the knifeman with blood running down his face from a deep wound extending from his forehead to his nose.
“We’re here during the hijacking of an airplane. At this point, we’ve subdued the terrorists and we’re approaching landing. Whoever is hearing me, we need help,” he says in the footage.
“We’re landing in Tabuk, apparently in Saudi Arabia—an unknown, unfamiliar area. Everyone on the plane is safe and sound, other than the pilot. We need help,” he adds.
Images shared online from inside the cabin appear to show another passenger wearing a white shirt heavily stained with blood.
Other graphic footage shows the injured pilot lying bloodied on the floor while passengers provide him with oxygen.
Footage shows the passenger who helped restrain the knifeman with blood running from a wound stretching from his forehead to his nose
Graphic footage appears to show the wounded pilot lying on the floor as passengers give him oxygen
A second crew member appears tied up beside the pilot, apparently unconscious and covered in blood
A second crew member is seen tied up beside him, apparently unconscious and covered in blood.
Flydubai Flight FZ1073, travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv, diverted over Jordanian airspace towards Saudi Arabia after transmitting a general emergency signal followed by another distress alert.
The incident sparked fears of a hijacking and led Israel to scramble fighter jets.
Flight data indicated that the aircraft plunged nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds before sending its first emergency signal, according to Flightradar24.
Passengers told Israel’s Channel 12 that they heard shouting from the front of the aircraft, where an altercation between the pilots was reportedly taking place. They also said the jet dipped sharply before landing in Saudi Arabia.
The Israeli security establishment—including the IDF, Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel’s Security Agency—was increasingly of the view that the incident had been intended as an act of terror.
A second team of pilots, travelling in civilian clothing, was reportedly aboard the aircraft and allegedly stopped one of the pilots from taking control and crashing the jet.
A passenger aboard Wednesday’s allegedly hijacked flight has described how Israeli travellers overpowered the man with the knife.
Passenger Itzhak Liber recorded a video message for his family and later uploaded it to Facebook.
‘We took control of the situation here on the flight,’ he said in the clip, ‘There was an attacker with a knife who stabbed one of the pilots.
‘We just jumped on him and restrained him together with the pilot,’ he added.
Liber said the attacker had been ‘neutralised’ and was ‘seriously injured’.
‘Apparently the other pilot is inside [the cockpit]. He’s completely freaked out, but he’s managing to land the plane,’ he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz held an urgent meeting to discuss the situation, while Israeli airspace was also temporarily closed and later reopened.
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A regional official briefed on the incident said a fight broke out in the cockpit and apparently involved pilots, but added it wasn’t immediately clear what had caused the dispute.
‘We were either going to crash or be murdered. It was like a terrorist attack in mid-air,’ one passenger told i24NEWS.
One of the passengers on the Flydubai aircraft can be seen with blood on his shirt
The channel reported that authorities are allegedly investigating whether the pilot attempted to crash the plane, which the co-pilot and passengers prevented.
Another passenger on the Boeing 737 MAX told Israel’s Channel 12: ‘We heard screams on the plane. Then they opened the cockpit and we saw blood, and someone had stabbed the pilot with a pocketknife.’
She described how the Israeli passengers helped restrain an attacker along with members of the crew. ‘We prayed, “Shema Yisrael,”‘ she said.
‘There were also moments when we thought we weren’t going to make it out alive.’
Another woman, identifying herself as Noam, told the network in a call: ‘Screams began on the plane… by passengers who realised what was happening.
‘We understand that one of the pilots was stabbed and seriously wounded, and they lost control of the plane. It started to dive quickly. It was very scary.’
Data from publicly available sources shows that two hours and fifteen minutes into the flight, the jet suddenly took a sharp nosedive, dropping from 34,000 to around 17,000 feet in under a minute as it sped up from 411 knots to nearly 600.
The aircraft recovered slightly for several seconds, reaching 21,650 feet, before dropping sharply again, this time to under 14,000 feet.
Over the next hour, the plane failed to maintain a steady altitude, but it remained at around 15,000 feet, indicating it was being controlled by hand rather than autopilot, according to the Times of Israel.
Israeli authorities were unable to make contact with the jet during the incident.
Not long after the incident, the plane landed in Tabuk, a civilian and military base in the kingdom, with 180 passengers onboard.
Netanyahu has warned in recent days of unspecified, escalated security threats.
Following the emergency landing of the plane in Saudi Arabia, the airline is sending a second plane to Tabuk Airport to fly passengers the remainder of the way to Israel.
Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir were also considering the possibility of dispatching Israeli military or civilian aircraft in order to bring the Israelis home, Walla learned.
Israel has not experienced a hijacking in decades but maintains some of the strictest airport security in the world.
Pictured: Flydubai Boeing 737 MAX from Dubai to Tel Aviv, which landed at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia, September 30
Commercial flight have flown between Israel and the United Arab Emirates since the countries normalised ties in 2020.
A Flydubai spokesperson told the Daily Mail: ‘Flydubai can confirm that flight FZ 1073 operating from Dubai International (DXB) to Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) on September 30 experienced an incident while en route.
‘The aircraft has landed safely in Tabuk Airport (TUU) and all passengers are safe and accounted for.
‘The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew remain our highest priority.
‘Our teams are working closely with the relevant authorities. Further updates will be issued as additional confirmed details become available.’