Passengers who were on board a flydubai flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel described scenes of panic and confusion after the plane issued a distress signal, abruptly changed course and landed in Saudi Arabia, prompting initial fears of a hijacking.
About 180 Israeli passengers were on board. Footage from the cockpit showed two pilots wounded and bleeding, while a passenger standing by said that one pilot stabbed the other. "We are guarding the pilot who was attacked here; we are standing here so that no one passes the door," he is heard saying.
The pilot and co-pilot were both hospitalized after sustaining wounds, according to Tabuk Airport, where the plane landed. According to an Israeli source, the pilot suspected of the act is of Omani origin – a country with which Israel does not have diplomatic relations – while the co-pilot is reportedly from India.
Another passenger was filmed in a video from the plane with blood on his body. "We are here, on a flight, and we have just subdued the terrorists. We are approaching landing," he said. "Anyone who can hear me: We need help. We are probably landing in Tabuk, somewhere in Saudi Arabia. Everyone on the plane is safe and sound except for the pilot. We need help."
Israeli officials initially said the alert had been triggered by a physical altercation between the pilots. However, an Israeli source later told Haaretz that the possibility of a terrorist incident had not been ruled out, and that investigators were examining whether one of the pilots had attempted to crash the plane. Other scenarios are also being investigated, and the circumstances of the incident remain unclear.
Israeli officials later said the emergency signals were issued following a physical altercation between the pilots. They were also examining the possibility that one of the pilots had attempted to crash the plane. Other scenarios were being investigated. On Wednesday afternoon, a flydubai plane landed at the airport to Israeli passengers.
An Israeli passenger, Adam, told Channel 13 News that the plane's electrical system suddenly went down.
"I didn't see everything because I was sitting roughly in the middle of the plane," he said. "We experienced a sudden shutdown, a loss of the plane's electrical system, the multimedia system, everything. Then there were screams: 'Stabbings, stabbings, blood, blood.'"
Adam said passengers were called on to intervene. "Several Israeli guys jumped in," he said, adding that the flight attendants had not functioned effectively. After the passengers intervened, he said, "they managed to stabilize the plane."
"Three or four people saved 180 people," he said.
Adam said the passengers remained in the air for another hour after the incident. "That was also very difficult. It was stressful. We didn't know whether we would land in Israel. No one was communicating very much," he said. "From the moment we landed, it was relatively calm."
He said the passengers were taken to a terminal after landing in Saudi Arabia, where they were given water and medical teams were treating those who needed assistance.
Dalia Shpigel, who was on the flight, told Haaretz that about an hour before landing, passengers felt that "the plane had gone out of control and was beginning to dive, with very unusual jolts."
At that point, she said, "we realized that something very unusual was happening, and suddenly there were terrible screams throughout the plane. It turned out that a mother waiting for her daughter near the bathroom had seen what was happening in the cockpit and began screaming in terror. Three to five guys burst into the cockpit, subdued the terrorist and began treating the wounded pilot."
"We realized that the situation was stabilizing and continued the flight. Gradually, information began to emerge about what had happened in the cockpit," she added.
"Then the young men on the plane took charge and began tending to people. The passengers behaved impeccably; no one panicked or shouted. It continued like that until we realized we were landing. We didn't know where we were landing until the plane touched down."
She said the passengers had been treated well at the Saudi airport. "Right now, we're all here in the terminal, and medical teams are examining us," she said. "They're treating us very well. They brought us food and coffee, and we're waiting to find out what happens next."
"There was a lot of disinformation," Shpigel said, adding that the passengers who intervened had "also subdued the attacker and treated the pilots."
"It was very stressful," two passengers, Hadas and Noam, told Channel 12 News. We understood that the pilot had been stabbed in the cockpit. There was panic, but we landed and now everything is OK," they said.
"The passengers started screaming. Then the plane began moving from side to side. We understood that the pilots had lost control because one of them had been stabbed. He was seriously wounded. The plane simply began descending rapidly. It was very frightening."
At 8:22 A.M., while the plane was in Saudi airspace and about an hour before its scheduled landing in Israel, it began a sudden descent. According to flight data recorded by several tracking websites, the plane descended at a rate of about five kilometers per minute, dropping from its cruising altitude of 34,000 feet to 16,000 feet in less than two minutes.
It then activated a general emergency code, followed a few minutes later by a hijacking code. The plane flew toward Jordan and entered its airspace before changing course and heading back toward Saudi Arabia. About 50 minutes later, the plane was last detected at a very low altitude near Tabuk Airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia, where it eventually landed.
