TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A copilot stabbed a captain in an apparent attempt to crash a jetliner Wednesday as it was flying 174 people to Israel. Passengers burst into the cockpit and wrestled with the attacker even as the plane descended sharply, witnesses and Israel’s government said.
The plane made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The shaken passengers from the FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv landed Wednesday evening in Israel on another flight, as onlookers cheered. Israel’s emergency services said they treated three passengers with minor injuries.
It was not clear what motivated the attack, which led Israel to scramble warplanes amid concerns about a possible hijacking. In a CNN interview aired on Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacker was an Omani national and was being interrogated in Saudi Arabia, where he was arrested.
Aviation experts were surprised the plane did not crash after a descent so extreme that most of the rudder was ripped off the tail.
“We’re going to die,” passenger Naama Bershadski recalled thinking as she closed her eyes and prayed.
A video shared by Netanyahu’s office showed passenger Yaniv Hayoun, who grappled with the attacker, wearing a bloodied shirt and hugging the prime minister, who told Hayoun: “I look at you and I see a lion. I see a great hero.”
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he and Netanyahu discussed the incident “at length” by telephone and that it seemed as though the copilot “was perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack job. And, he stabbed the pilot.”
Responders said they knew they had seconds to act
Hayoun, who Netanyahu identified as a plumber, said he and others pushed their way into the cockpit, where he saw the alleged attacker seemingly trying to destroy the controls.
“The door apparently wasn’t locked, and we managed to open it,” Hayoun told journalists. “What made it difficult for us was the (other) pilot himself. He had been stabbed and was on the other side of the door.”
Hayoun told Netanyahu that as people wrestled with the attacker, he grabbed the controls and pulled them the way he had seen on television shows. Then crew members took over. FlyDubai said the aircraft was secured by crew “who diverted and landed the aircraft safely.”
Another passenger, dentist Shota Musayev, told journalists they realized they had just seconds to take control of the plane before a “critical event.” They feared another attacker might be on the plane, so “we spread a few more people inside the plane so that if something happened, we would be able to simply take control.”
Musayev then attended to the wounded pilot: “He was just praying the whole time and was in contact with me, and I was afraid we would really lose him.”
Netanyahu identified the captain as Smit Machchhar, an Indian citizen, and noted his “extraordinary bravery.” The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia said Machchhar was hospitalized in stable condition.
In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity that aired Wednesday night, Netanyahu said the attacker might have hit the captain with an axe. Airlines are generally required to carry crash axes in the cockpit for use in an emergency to break open a window to escape or break open a panel to access a fire.
“Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic midair disaster,” Netanyahu said of the wounded captain on X. “He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said those on board were from Israel, India and the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. State Department said four passengers had American citizenship.
FlyDubai said its flights to and from Israel would be suspended while an investigation takes place. Netanyahu said he spoke with the UAE’s president, who agreed that Israel would join in interrogating the suspect.
The incident came at a busy travel time as the Jewish High Holy Days wrap up. In addition, national elections will be held on Oct. 27 and many Israelis plan to fly back to vote, since Israel doesn’t permit absentee voting from abroad.
Netanyahu had warned in recent days of unspecified, heightened security threats. The country is a week away from the anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which has triggered a series of wars.
Aviation experts marvel that the plane didn’t crash
In the chaos about two and a half hours after leaving Dubai, the flight descended from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet (around 10,000 meters to 5,100 meters) in about a minute, before making an erratic circle close to the Jordanian border and landing in Tabuk about an hour later, according to Flightradar24, which identified the aircraft as a Boeing 737 Max 8.
According to a statement by Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk, the plane landed there at 9:45 a.m., an hour after making a distress call.
“Suddenly the aircraft started to fall down, like, a massive turbulence, like a massive G force, for 20 or 30 seconds,” passenger Almog Italie said.
Former United Airlines pilot and aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo said he was surprised the plane was able to land safely after most of the rudder was ripped off the tail during the extreme descent.
“That was a serious descent and strong aerodynamic forces on that rudder for that to happen. I’m just amazed the aircraft didn’t come apart,” Arroyo said.
Another expert, Jeff Guzzetti, said that given the rate of descent, it may not have been possible for the plane to level out if it had fallen below 10,000 feet.
“It is remarkable they were able to pull out of that dive. What saved them is there was enough altitude left for them to recover,” said Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S.
A panicked mayday call as the flight sought place to land
A person who heard the flight’s communications with air traffic control described the plane being turned away by Saudi Arabia and Jordan before eventually landing in Tabuk.
The person said the pilot’s voice was trembling as he called “mayday” and said a hijacking was taking place and ambulances would be needed. But Saudi Arabia initially denied clearance to land and directed him to Jordan. The plane was told to wait for clearance from the Jordanian military and then turned away.
The pilot then returned to Saudi Arabia and said he had to land in Tabuk. The air control operators gave no reason for the refusals. The person who heard the communications spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he spoke with his counterpart in the UAE and they agreed to work together “against extremist elements seeking to harm security and undermine stability in the region.”
An official confirmed that Israel had scrambled warplanes, fearing a hijacking. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was under investigation.
Israelis have made emergency landings in Saudi Arabia before
Israelis were targeted in a string of hijackings and airplane attacks by Palestinian militants in the 1960s and 1970s. Israel has not experienced a hijacking in decades but maintains some of the strictest airport security in the world, including on Israel-bound flights.
The emergency landing in Saudi Arabia was not the first for a plane carrying Israelis home. The kingdom does not have formal diplomatic ties with Israel, but ended its longstanding ban on Israeli flights overflying its territory in 2022.
Since then, Saudi Arabia has coordinated emergency landings for Israeli passengers, including in 2023 when a plane experienced an electrical malfunction.
The UAE has become a popular vacation destination for Israeli tourists since the countries normalized ties in 2020. FlyDubai is the lower-cost sister carrier of Emirates airlines.
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Magdy reported from Cairo, Scharf from Jerusalem and Funk from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press writers Sam Metz, Aamer Madhani and Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Ami Ben Tov in Tel Aviv, Israel, Adam Schreck in Bangkok, Darlene Superville in Washington and Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis contributed to this report.