A Bloody Stabbing, Then Screams: The Fight To Save flydubai Flight

Inside the cockpit, one of the pilots had attacked his colleague, stabbing him repeatedly with a sharp object, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said.

01 Oct 2026, 04:02 · NDTV

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Pilot stabbed colleague mid-flight on Dubai to Tel Aviv Boeing 737 Max flight
Passengers and crew intervened after cockpit door was found ajar during attack
Plane plunged 14,000 feet rapidly before pilots regained control and stabilized it

What was the attacker's motive for the stabbing?

Passengers on board the Boeing Co. 737 Max aircraft were settling into their final hour of flight time from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning when chaos suddenly erupted over the skies of Saudi Arabia.

Inside the cockpit, one of the pilots had attacked his colleague, stabbing him repeatedly with a sharp object, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said. The shocking scene unfolded while most of the 170 or so passengers remained unaware of the situation, with the cockpit door obstructing the view to the front of the plane.

Among the people in the main cabin, Natan Grempel was seated toward the middle near the wing, returning home to Israel via Dubai from a trip to Japan with members of his family. When his wife and daughter got up to use the bathroom, they noticed the door of the cockpit was slightly ajar.

Inside, he said, one of the pilots was stabbing the other in the neck.

"They saw there was no one at the wheel, no pilot, and they started to scream," he said after they returned to Tel Aviv on a repatriation flight in the evening, escorted by police and cheered on by people on the ground.

First one passenger ran to the cockpit to break up the altercation, followed by another as the plane took a dive, he said. Another pilot seated in the back also raced forward and took control of the plane, Grempel said.

The tussle at the front of the plane turned what was supposed to be a routine flight for mainly Israeli passengers into a near-catastrophic ordeal. After fighting broke out in the cockpit, the jet plunged more than 14,000 feet (4,300 meters) in less than 30 seconds, before the other pilots that rushed to the scene managed to stabilize the aircraft again.

The aircraft later made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, where the attacker, whose identity has not been disclosed, is being questioned by local authorities.

Netanyahu branded the event a serious security incident, crediting the resolve of the passengers and crew that rushed to the front of the plane for saving many lives.

Photos shared on social media showed the pilots on the floor near the cockpit, bloodied and partly undressed to treat their wounds. Some passengers also had blood on their clothes and streaming down their faces, testimony of the drama that had suddenly unfolded in the sky.

The aircraft, too, revealed signs of damage. Photos of the aircraft after it landed in Saudi Arabia showed the rudder on the vertical stabilizer missing - damage that can occur when flight surfaces are moved too aggressively at high speeds.

But that split-second moment when a group of people decided to take charge of the plane also turned what most certainly would have meant death and destruction into a lucky escape for the people on board.

"He saved us," Grempel said of the first passenger who rushed to the cockpit.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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