A Flydubai Flight Made an Emergency Landing After a Cockpit Attack. Similar Threats Have Unfolded on Domestic US Flights

30 Sep 2026, 21:58 by Jerome London · Thought Catalog

SOCIAL MEDIA via REUTERS/SOCIAL MEDIA

Updated 3 minutes ago, September 30, 2026

The scenario played out on a Flydubai flight Wednesday, when FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv dropped more than 17,000 feet and made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, after a violent struggle in the cockpit. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot stabbed the captain and tried to crash the plane, and that passengers and a crew member forced their way into the cockpit to restrain him as other pilots aboard helped land the aircraft.

A picture taken on March 8, 2026, shows a Flydubai Boeing 737-8 MAX A6-FKF aircraft, which was bound for Israel from the United Arab Emirates diverted to Saudi Arabia after transmitting emergency signals following a fight between the pilots rather than a hijacking, according to an Israeli official, in this handout image in a location given as Salzburg, Austria. Karl Dittlbacher/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. MANDATORY CREDIT. VERIFICATION: -Reuters could not confirm the location where the photo was taken -Flight history for aircraft – A6-FKF indicates the aircraft did the liaison Salzburg-Dubai on March 8, 2026, according to tracking information available on Flightradar24. -Date confirmed from the original file metadata -The aircraft registration number seen in the archive image matched the registration number associated with the Playback information of flight FZ1073, according to tracking data available on Flightradar24.

Both pilots were injured and hospitalized. Everyone else on board was safe.

It sounds foreign, but American flights have faced the same kind of threat.

In 2023, an off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot riding in the jump seat of a Horizon Air flight from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco allegedly tried to shut down the engines mid-flight. The two operating pilots wrestled him out of the cockpit and diverted to Portland, Oregon.

No one was hurt. Joseph David Emerson later pleaded guilty to interfering with a flight crew.

In 2012, a JetBlue captain on a New York to Las Vegas flight began behaving erratically. His first officer locked him out of the cockpit when he stepped away, passengers and crew restrained him when he tried to force his way back in, and an off-duty JetBlue pilot helped land the plane in Amarillo, Texas. The captain was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

In 1994, FedEx employee Auburn Calloway boarded a cargo flight out of Memphis as a passenger and attacked the three-person crew with hammers and a speargun, trying to take control of the plane. The injured crew fought him off and returned to Memphis. He was convicted of attempted aircraft piracy and sentenced to life in prison.

Federal Air Marshals aren’t on every US flight. The TSA deploys them on routes it deems high security risk, and their job is criminal or terrorist activity that threatens the aircraft or the people aboard. If an attack unfolded entirely inside a locked cockpit, a marshal might not have direct access to stop it.

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