Pilot stabs fellow pilot on flight to Israel before passengers intervene
to stop attack
[October 01, 2026]
By SAMY MAGDY, MELANIE LIDMAN, ISAAC SCHARF and JOSH FUNK
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A copilot stabbed a captain in an apparent
attempt to crash a jetliner as it was flying 174 people to Israel on
Wednesday. But 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 at the airport. “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 other crew members took over. FlyDubai said the aircraft was
secured by on-duty crew “who diverted and landed the aircraft safely.”
Another responder, dentist Shota Musayev, told journalists they realized
they had just seconds to take control of the plane before a “critical
event.” They also 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.”
Video footage on social media reviewed by The Associated Press showed
two men on the plane’s floor, bloodied and wounded.
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.
“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 on X. “He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens
and other nationals.”
Israel's foreign ministry said the people 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 that he spoke with the UAE’s
president, who agreed that Israel would join the interrogation of the
suspect.
The incident came at a busy travel time as the Jewish High Holy Days
with school and work breaks 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.
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Passengers who experienced an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia,
during a flight on FlyDubai plane, arrive at Ben Gurion
International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Sept. 30,
2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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 that 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 aviation safety 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, while passengers screamed
in the background.
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.” The general Civil Aviation Authority of the UAE said
it was investigating a security incident.
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.
___
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.
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