DUBAI (AP) — A copilot on a flight to Israel stabbed a captain on Wednesday before passengers pushed their way into the cockpit and wrestled with the attacker. The FlyDubai plane fell rapidly, and a passenger said
he grabbed the controls and pulled upward, like how he had seen on television. Other crew members soon took over, and the jetliner made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
It was not clear what motivated the attack. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saudi Arabia arrested the copilot. The passengers from the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv were met with cheers in Israel as they completed the journey on another flight Wednesday evening.
Here's a look at the airline in which the altercation took place.
FlyDubai, the sister airline to Emirates, is a government-owned carrier run by the United Arab Emirates that operates a fleet of 98 Boeing 737 aircraft, according to its website. The airline flies to the Mideast, Africa, Europe and Asia, including the Indian subcontinent.
In November 2020, FlyDubai began offering commercial flights between Tel Aviv and Dubai, a rare route at a time when other airlines in the region stopped flying to Israel, a UAE ally.
The airline reported carrying 15.7 million passengers in 2025 and reached a total revenue of AED 13.6 billion ($3.7 billion).
In the chaos of the attack, 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. Most of the plane’s rudder was ripped off the tail during the sudden drop.
Netanyahu identified the wounded captain as Smit Machchhar of India. The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia said Machchhar was 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.”
