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.

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.

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.

 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.’

Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson turned heads with their high-glamour looks at Tuesday’s New York premiere of their upcoming thriller, Verity, held at AMC Lincoln Square.

Hathaway, 43, proudly highlighted her advanced pregnancy in a shimmering black sequin gown as she arrived on the red carpet.

She styled her long brunette hair in a sleek half-up, half-down high ponytail and completed the look with silver earrings.

The actress is preparing to welcome her third child with husband Adam Shulman. She attended the New York event after missing last week’s star-studded premiere in London.

Johnson, 36, made a bold fashion statement of her own, revealing her toned midriff in a white fringed bra top paired with a matching skirt.

Hathaway portrays bestselling novelist Verity Crawford in the screen version of Colleen Hoover’s novel. Johnson plays Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling writer recruited to finish the remaining installments of Verity’s hit book series after a mysterious accident leaves the author incapacitated.

Johnson, who recently appeared alongside Colin Farrell in pal Taylor Swift’s Patient Zero music video, injected a vivid touch into her premiere look with bright red lipstick.

A diamond necklace and silver earrings provided the finishing touches to her ensemble.

Josh Hartnett, 48, was also among the evening’s guests. He plays Jeremy Crawford, Verity’s devoted husband.

The actor looked polished in a grey suit, teamed with classic black dress shoes.

Hartnett attended with his wife, Tamsin Egerton, 37, who opted for a chic black mini dress and heels.

Hoover, 46, also walked the red carpet, celebrating the big-screen adaptation of her bestselling novel in an elegant gold gown.

Puerto Rican actor Ismael Cruz Cordova, 39, kept his look classic in a grey suit with a black tie.

The film was adapted by Nick Antosca and directed by Michael Showalter.

Verity centers on Ashleigh, a struggling writer whose fortunes shift when she receives an unexpected offer that could change her life.

Crawford, played by Hathaway, is a successful thriller author whose life is upended by a mysterious accident. With Verity left debilitated, her husband Jeremy, portrayed by Hartnett, hires Lowen to ghostwrite the final books in her series.

After arriving at the couple’s lavish estate, Lowen finds an unfinished manuscript that could expose disturbing secrets surrounding Verity and her husband’s past.

The young writer is forced to continue her work for Jeremy while trying to determine if the writings are merely fiction, or a disturbing warning from a dangerous woman. 

Verity will be released in cinemas on October 2.

The premiere comes after Hathaway explained why she wasn’t able to promote Verity on the YouTube show Hot Ones, despite the fact her fictional character in the movie appears on the web program.

Speaking on the Talk of the Townsends podcast, Hathaway revealed that she was advised by her doctor to skip appearing on the program due to her pregnancy.

The premise of the show, which has nearly 16 million followers on YouTube, sees guests consuming progressively spicier chicken wings as they answer inquiries from host Sean Evans.

Hathaway, who is mother to sons Jonathan, 10, and Jack, six, with husband Shulman, said that while playing her character in the film, she ate the ‘first three wings for real’ before she ‘switched to dummy wings.’

She added that she thought she ‘was gonna be able to do the Hot Ones challenge to do press for this film because it just made sense,’ until she received medical advice against eating a series of hot wings.

‘I got pregnant, and my doctor said I couldn’t do it because I might go into early labor,’ Hathaway said.

She added that she still hasn’t ‘done the gauntlet yet,’ and is ‘not sure when that’s gonna happen,’ suggesting ‘maybe next year’ after she gives birth.

According to Healthline, the consumption of spicy foods is linked to triggering labor in late stage pregnancies.

Hathaway said there ‘was a big conversation’ as to ‘whether or not’ she would actually consume the spicy wings during filming of the motion picture.

She said she’s never appeared on the show and ‘done the 10-piece gauntlet,’ which she was concerned could impact her performance in the dramatic thriller.

‘You don’t want your first kiss ever in your life to be like an on-screen kiss,’ Hathaway said. ‘You want that to be, like, a real thing where you’re not playing a character at the same time as experiencing something physically.’