by WorldTribune Staff, September 30, 2026 Non-AI Real World News

A Flydubai airliner carrying Israelis from Dubai to Tel Aviv went into a nosedive on Wednesday morning when the co-pilot stabbed the pilot and tried to disable the controls in what officials and passengers described as an attempted hijacking.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described a series of events that had been relayed to him by one of the passengers on the plane, saying the flight had gone into a spin and began to dive during the attack.

The FlyDubai Boeing 737 Max 8 plane flying to Tel Aviv from the United Arab Emirates was cruising at around 34,000 feet when one of the pilots tried to take control in what Israeli sources say was an attempted hijacking, The Jerusalem Post reported.

A passenger and a member of the crew broke into the cockpit and subdued the attacker. The attacker is believed to be Omani and had worked at FlyDubai for less than a year, sources told the Jerusalem Post.

Others on board then entered the cockpit and were able to stabilize the plane, before landing in Saudi Arabia, reports say.

Passengers stood over the two bloodied pilots in the aircraft’s kitchen area after the attacker was subdued, according to video footage verified by Storyful, owned by News Corp, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.

A passenger described how he wrestled the alleged terrorist out of the cockpit before taking control of the jet, averting a possible 9/11-style attack on Israel, The Telegraph reported.

The man, wearing a blood-soaked T-shirt, was embraced by Netanyahu as he arrived back in Tel Aviv following the hijacking attempt, which took place in Saudi airspace.

The passenger, identified as Yaniv Hayun, said: “When I went in, I saw the terrorist on the controls, between the two seats. There were no pilots in the seats. I grabbed the terrorist, put him in a hold, and first of all pulled him outside.”

Hayun said he called for other passengers to help hold back the co-pilot before rushing back into the cockpit to steady the plane.

“I jumped back in there, grabbed the controls, started pulling the controls,” he said, adding that another pilot later took over from him and landed the plane.

“One pilot stabbed the other and tried to do 9/11,” an official told Israel’s Channel 12 of the incident that saw Israeli fighter jets scrambled as a precaution.

Some of the 174 passengers onboard filmed footage of one of the pilots covered in blood.

“We’re here during the hijacking of an airplane. At this point we’ve subdued the terrorists,” one passenger said, begging for help as blood ran down his head.

“We were either going to crash or be murdered,” another passenger told I24 News. “It was like a terrorist attack in mid-air.”

The pilot was identified as Smit Machchhar, from India. He managed to open the cockpit door during the melee, reports say.

A friend of Machchhar told The Telegraph on Wednesday night that he was “stable now and out of surgery.”

Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, described the incident as an “attempted jihadist attack.”

Katz added that the attack had only been thwarted “thanks to the heroism of several Israeli passengers who stormed the cockpit, subdued the terrorist and, with their own hands, restored control of the plane to another flight crew that was present.”

Freedom Rocks! Until It Is Gone

  They ‘tried to do 9/11’: Pilot of Israel-bound airliner stabbed by co-pilot, WorldTribune.com