Passengers burst into the cockpit and took control of a FlyDubai airliner headed to Israel Wednesday from a co-pilot accused of stabbing the captain and taking the craft into a dangerously violent, sudden descent.
The jet, with 174 mostly Israeli passengers aboard, was stabilized and rerouted from its Tel Aviv destination to an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
It was unclear what motivated the incident, which led Israel to scramble warplanes amid concerns about a possible hijacking. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saudi Arabia arrested the pilot, who was not identified.
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The plane, a Boeing 737 Max 8, made an emergency landing at 9:45 a.m. at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia after it plummeted thousands of feet before being righted.
Mika Bauman, an Israeli citizen on the flight, compared the chaos aboard the plane to a roller coaster “times a million.”
“I was just sure I was going to die,” she told CNN.
The shaken passengers from the FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv landed in Israel on another flight Wednesday evening, as onlookers cheered.
Aviation experts were surprised that the plane did not crash after a descent so extreme that most of the rudder was ripped off the tail.
A video shared by Mr. Netanyahu’s office showed passenger Yaniv Hayoun, who grappled with the accused pilot, hugging the prime minister. Mr. Netanyahu told Mr. Hayoun, still wearing a bloodied shirt: “I look at you and I see a lion. I see a great hero.”
Passengers told reporters afterward that they knew they had only seconds to act.
When one traveler called for help after witnessing the stabbing, Mr. Hayoun said, he and others pushed their way into the cockpit, where he saw the unharmed pilot apparently trying to destroy the controls, according to Israeli broadcaster Channel 12.
“The door apparently wasn’t locked, and we managed to open it somehow,” Mr. 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.”
As people wrestled with the attacker, Mr. Hayoun said, he grabbed the controls and pulled them the way he had seen on television. Then other crew members took over. FlyDubai said the aircraft was secured by the on-duty crew “who diverted and landed the aircraft safely.”
Another passenger in the scrum, Tzvika Manes, told Channel 12 that it took many minutes to subdue the attacking pilot.
Mr. Netanyahu said the captain, an Indian citizen named Smit Machchnar, was “seriously injured” in the attack, but did not provide further details on his condition.
“He fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker, preventing a catastrophic midair disaster,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals.”
FlyDubai has said only that “an altercation occurred in the flight deck” and has not confirmed whether a pilot had a knife or stabbed the captain.
The plane sent an emergency alert about two hours after leaving Dubai, according to publicly available tracking data. It also transmitted an unlawful interference alert, which is used to signal a hijacking or illegal seizure, just a few minutes later.
The Israeli air force scrambled two fighter jets after the plane signaled the unlawful interference alert, according to Israeli media reports.
FlyDubai Flight 1073 was carrying 174 passengers, including 27 children, all of whom were accounted for and safe, according to the airline. The airline said it sent two replacement aircraft to Tabuk to recover the crew and passengers.
Asaf Rajuan, one of the plane’s passengers who helped stop the attack, said those aboard would “never have survived” if passengers had not “neutralized” the suspect in the cockpit.
“One of our fears was that we didn’t know where we would land,” Mr. Rajuan told reporters upon landing in Israel. “There was only desert below us.”
Shota Musev, an Israeli dentist, reportedly tended to the injured captain in midair. He said the captain suffered cuts to his head and fingers.
The captain and co-pilot were treated for injuries at a Saudi hospital, airport officials said.
Authorities have not publicly disclosed a motive, and some reports have identified the co-pilot as an Omani national, but neither Saudi nor Israeli officials have publicly identified the man. Media reports indicate that Israeli security officials are investigating the incident as an attack against Israelis.
Mr. Netanyahu stopped short of calling the incident a terrorist attack, describing it instead as “an extremely severe security incident.” He called for increased security on Israeli and non-Israeli carriers flying into Israel.
Israeli Transport Minister Miri Regev ordered all FlyDubai flights to Israel halted, according to Israeli media reports.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, far-right allies of Mr. Netanyahu, also asserted that the incident was a foiled terrorist attack, though Defense Minister Israel Katz provided no evidence.
Among the passengers who intervened were members of the Israeli security forces and air marshals, said a person familiar with an investigation by Saudi Arabia and regional partners. The person was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
FlyDubai said its flights to and from Israel would be suspended pending an investigation.
Mr. 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, and is weeks away from an election.
In the chaos about 2½ hours after leaving Dubai, the flight descended from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet 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.
“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 landed 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,” Mr. Arroyo said.
Israelis have made emergency landings in Saudi Arabia before. The kingdom does not have formal diplomatic ties with Israel, but ended its long-standing ban on Israeli flights overflying its territory in 2022. Since then, Saudi authorities have coordinated emergency diversions for Israeli passengers, including a 2023 incident involving 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.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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