September 30, 2026

SHADES OF 9/11: FlyDubai Pilot Attempts Hijacking, Mass Destruction.

Imagine if Flight 93 had had a happy ending. Israel and Saudi Arabia may have just experienced their own version, 25 years later.

The Wall Street Journal reports cautiously on what appears to be a terrorist hijacking over Israel. Their report notes a “struggle” in the cockpit, a steep dive, and an intervention by passengers to resolve it:

Pilots on a FlyDubai flight to Israel were injured after a struggle in the cockpit that sent the plane into a steep dive before it made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

FlyDubai, the sister airline to the long-haul carrier Emirates, didn’t explain what happened in the flight for the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft, only saying that it “experienced an incident while en route.” Flight FZ1073 landed in Tabuk in western Saudi Arabia and “all passengers are safe and accounted for,” the carrier added.

A statement from the Tabuk airport said “the captain and the co-pilot sustained injuries and were transported to the hospital for necessary medical care.” It did not elaborate on the cause of the injuries.

Itzhak Liber, a person who identified himself on his Facebook page as being a passenger on the flight, said in a video from the plane that an attacker stabbed a pilot. Liber said some on board had stepped in and removed the attacker from the cockpit.

The Times of Israel has a much more robust account of the attempted hijacking. The terrorist turns out to be the FlyDubai co-pilot, hired less than a year earlier, on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. After stabbing the captain, the co-pilot dove the plane 17,000 feet until passengers breached the cockpit and saved their own lives, not to mention whatever the co-pilot may have aimed the plane at in Saudi Arabia or Israel[.]

More here: Flydubai Co-Pilot Stabs Captain Midair — Israeli Passengers Subdue Him Before the Plane Can Crash.

Not surprisingly, this gentleman is rather elated to have survived:

UPDATE: Pilot ‘stabbed’ in suspected hijacking of Israel-bound passenger flight.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said one of the pilots “stabbed the other pilot and apparently tried to crash the plane” on the Flydubai plane.

He described how a passenger and a member of the crew managed to “neutralise” the co-pilot while another crew member took control of the plane.

The suspected assailant is in custody and currently being questioned by the Saudi authorities, he added.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, said the incident showed Israel must continue its war efforts.

He said: “Thank God and the heroic passengers, but Israel’s security doctrine must be taken to the next level. We must not stop and must continue until achieving total victory in Iran, Lebanon, Gaza and Judea and Samaria.”

Exit quote: “Mr Ben-Gvir, also a member of the security cabinet, said: ‘The naive notion that our enemies value life and that we should have mercy on them was met with another reminder this morning in the form of a terrorist who planned to crash a plane and murder the 180 Israelis on board.’”

Meanwhile as far as the Gray Lady is concerned, its origin and purpose, still a total mystery:

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll