{"id":641529,"date":"2026-10-01T10:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T10:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641529\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T10:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T10:38:13","slug":"no-one-is-passing-through-this-door-inside-the-flydubai-cockpit-fight-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641529\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No one is passing through this door\u2019: Inside the Flydubai cockpit fight \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flydubai flight FZ 1073 took off as usual from Dubai International<\/a> on Wednesday morning at 6.49am local time for Tel Aviv<\/a>, one of more than two dozen daily flights between the United Arab Emirates<\/a> and Israel.<\/p>\n

By the end of the day, it would become known around the world for a disaster that was only just averted.<\/p>\n

None of this could have been known to the 174 passengers, the vast majority of whom were Israelis, who showed up a few hours early for the rigorous security checks usually required for flights into and out of their country.<\/p>\n

The passengers would have come from all over: travellers making a connection from Asia, tourists finishing holidays at Dubai\u2019s resorts and businesspeople used to making the three-hour journey between the two countries.<\/p>\n

\"AssafAssaf Regavim, one of the passengers who stormed a Flydubai cockpit, speaks to the media outside the terminal at Ben Gurion Airport. Photograph: Erik Marmor\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

The first two-and-a-half hours of the flight were unremarkable, according to passengers\u2019 testimony and flight-tracking websites, with the plane skirting over the blue waters of the Gulf before cruising westward at 34,000ft over the barren yellow expanse of the Saudi desert. All was on track for a 9am arrival in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

And then a commotion began.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard screaming, people running, panicking,\u201d Evyatar HaLevy, a 17-year-old passenger, told the FT. \u201cIt felt terrible … We were so scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard what sounded like a struggle coming from the cockpit,\u201d Yaniv Hayoun, a passenger seated near the front of the plane, later relayed to Israeli media.<\/p>\n

The plane began a precipitous descent, nose down, plummeting by 18,000ft within the space of 90 seconds, according to Flightradar24. Over the next 11 minutes, it climbed, dived and climbed again.<\/p>\n

The aircraft\u2019s ground speed, measured in nautical miles per hour or knots, shot from 400 to more than 600, well above normal cruising speed, ricocheting around for minutes as the battle for control of the cockpit continued.<\/p>\n

In the back, passengers screamed and the roughly 30 children on board wailed.<\/p>\n

\"AA plane carrying passengers from an earlier Flydubai flight that was diverted to Saudi Arabia arrives at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel. Photograph: Erik Marmor\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were plummeting down,\u201d HaLevy said. He said he had believed that \u201cdeath was definitely an option\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018We\u2019re so screwed\u2019, I said, \u2018I\u2019m going to die\u2019,\u201d Peleg Italie (17) recalled exclaiming \u201cafter the plane nosedived\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy God, my God, my God,\u201d one woman yelled in a video later posted to social media. A father, crouching in the seat, tried to calm his children, his inflection growing more panicked. \u201cEverything is OK, it\u2019s just an air pocket. An air pocket. An air pocket, everything is OK,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At 8.31am Israeli time, amid the chaos, the plane issued a 7700 \u201cgeneral emergency\u201d alert \u2013 often used for engine failure or a medical emergency \u2013 to air traffic control.<\/p>\n

Four minutes later, it changed its code to the 7500 \u201cunlawful interference\u201d, an extremely rare signal that can indicate a hijacking. <\/p>\n

The pilot was telling authorities he had lost control.<\/p>\n

Inside the cockpit, a co-pilot had stabbed the pilot with a knife, kicking off a deadly struggle over the fate of the plane. Israel later claimed that the attacker was an Omani national, though his motive remains unclear.<\/p>\n

One quick-witted Israeli passenger, Tzvika Manes, and a crew member rushed through the door before the attacker could crash the plane.<\/p>\n

Manes would later tell Israeli media it took some 20 to 30 minutes of struggle, with the help of at least a few more passengers, to remove the co-pilot and bind him with headphone cords.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree passengers threw themselves on the [co-pilot] and captured him,\u201d Dan Zoller, who was on the aircraft with his wife, son and daughter, told the FT. \u201cAnd then there was another pilot [who subsequently flew] the plane. I think he was British.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assaf Rajuan, one of the passengers who helped subdue the attacker, told the FT that \u201cwe did it instinctively\u201d.\u2009<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a long fight … The issue was to control him, to neutralise him,\u201d Rajuan added.<\/p>\n

Itzik Lieber, another passenger, said in a video message uploaded to social media: \u201cWe just jumped in and removed him from the cockpit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [co-pilot] was neutralised and the pilot was seriously injured,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\"Image:Image: Mehmet Yaren Bozgun\/Anadolu via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Video posted online from a passenger named Shota Musaev just outside the cockpit showed a gruesome scene. <\/p>\n

The purported attacker, tied and bloodied, lay on the floor with an oxygen mask on his face being tended to by two Flydubai crew members. <\/p>\n

The pilot, bare-chested and bloodied, his head on several pillows, stared into the camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo sleep,\u201d Musaev told him, clutching his hand. \u201cYou want sleep? No.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayoun, red blood stains on his white shirt, can be seen standing guard outside the cockpit. \u201cNo one is passing through this door,\u201d he said, after a third Flydubai pilot had taken control and stabilised the plane.<\/p>\n

The jet steadied at about 15,000ft, half the altitude at which continental flights typically operate. At that height, aircraft and their details are clearly visible from the ground with the naked eye. <\/p>\n

Still within Saudi airspace, the plane sped along the border with Jordan, remarkably still heading northwest in the direction of Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know where we could land and that was very worrying; under us it was only desert,\u201d Rajuan recalled. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know who to trust. I was very scared for my life and my family\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 8.40am Israeli time, it entered Jordan, before abruptly turning around and re-entering Saudi airspace six minutes later towards an emergency landing at Tabuk airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys, we\u2019re landing,\u201d Rajuan yelled to the rest of the passengers, fist aloft. \u201cWe won! The nation of Israel lives!\u201d<\/p>\n

As the plane touched ground in Saudi Arabia, its rudder heavily damaged, the entire flight clapped their hands and cheered, breaking out into traditional Jewish song.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the main thing is \u2013 not to be afraid at all,\u201d passengers sang in Hebrew. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0UAE investigates if attack was ‘terrorist activity’Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flydubai flight FZ 1073 took off as usual from Dubai International on Wednesday morning at 6.49am local time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10748,200,42,3410,43,40,38,41,39,36222],"class_list":["post-641529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-binyamin-netanyahu","tag-dubai","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-arab-emirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}