The Omani co-pilot who stabbed his Emirati captain midflight on a Flydubai service from Dubai to Tel Aviv had been employed by the carrier for only nine months. Saudi officials confirmed that both crew members were hospitalized following the emergency landing at Tabuk Airport (city in northwestern Saudi Arabia). In Jerusalem, Transportation Minister Miri Regev suspended Flydubai operations to Israel while ordering a formal inquiry into potential breaches of bilateral aviation treaties.
Video: The Emirati pilot after being stabbed on the FlyDubai flight on September 30 next to the attacker after being subdued by passengers / Credit: Social media
Information obtained by Israel Hayom reveals that the co-pilot launched a knife attack against the captain inside the cockpit while the aircraft was airborne. The crew squawked emergency transponder code 7700 before escalating to code 7500 – the international signal for an active hijacking – forcing the plane to divert into Saudi airspace.
Authorities at Tabuk Airport confirmed that emergency responders rushed both injured aviators to a local hospital upon touchdown. Control of the aircraft was seized midair by two off-duty flight crew members – a Russian pilot and a Ukrainian pilot – who managed to neutralize the threat and navigate the airliner to a safe landing in Saudi Arabia.
The moment the hijacking alert sounded, a joint multinational war room was activated, bringing together defense officials from Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Jordan was kept fully briefed as both Saudi and Jordanian fighter jets scrambled to secure the surrounding airspace. The unprecedented regional coordination was executed under pre-established joint defense protocols managed by US CENTCOM.
High-level negotiations regarding the extraction of stranded passengers and crew are ongoing, involving security officials led by the Mossad and diplomatic representatives from the Prime Minister's Office. While Saudi authorities granted clearance for an Emirati aircraft to conduct an extraction mission, permission for an Israeli aircraft has not been issued. The Israeli Air Force remains on standby, and flag carrier El Al was instructed to prepare a long-range vessel should Riyadh grant clearance.
Citing the gravity of the attack and the assailant's background, Transportation Minister Miri Regev instructed aviation authorities to halt all Flydubai flights to Israel. Regev instructed the Civil Aviation Authority (Israel's aviation regulatory body) to investigate whether Flydubai infringed upon Israel-UAE aviation pacts, which ministry officials state limit flight operations to crews holding passports from nations with formal diplomatic relations with Israel.
The investigation centers on the fact that the co-pilot holds Omani citizenship, a country that maintains no diplomatic relations with Israel. The Civil Aviation Authority is now required to audit the airline's hiring practices on Israeli routes and evaluate overall compliance with binding security protocols.
