{"id":616694,"date":"2026-09-30T20:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T20:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/616694\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T20:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T20:16:11","slug":"what-we-know-and-dont-know-about-suspected-attempted-hijacking-of-flydubai-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/616694\/","title":{"rendered":"What we know – and don’t know – about suspected attempted hijacking of Flydubai flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the pilots of the Israel-bound Flydubai flight FZ1073 stabbed the other pilot<\/a> and appears to have tried to crash the plane, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a short while ago.<\/p>\n

Here’s what we know, and don’t know, about the incident so far:<\/p>\n

What we know<\/p>\n

When this happened: The plane issued a distress call at 8.31am local time, according to publicly available data.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, the flight squawked code 7500, which signals an aircraft hijacking.<\/p>\n

“During the flight as they approached the country, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot,” Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n

Where the plane was diverted: The incident caused the aircraft, traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv, to plummet 17,400 feet (5.3km) in less than two minutes, flight tracking data shows. It was then diverted to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Some details on the attack: After stabbing his colleague, the pilot carrying out the attack seemed to be attempting to sabotage the aircraft’s systems and trying to crash it, according to passengers, Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n

\"Bloody<\/p>\n

Bloody passenger on flydubai flight pleads for help.<\/p>\n

CNN, Social media via X, Channel 14<\/p>\n

Some details on the attacker: The attempted hijacker of the aircraft was its co-pilot, Israeli officials have said. One official told CNN that the co-pilot was an Omani national.<\/p>\n

Some details on those injured: Both the captain and co-pilot of the plane were injured and taken to hospital, Saudi Arabia’s leading aviation operator said.<\/p>\n

Where passengers are now: Most of the passengers on flight FZ1073 have since traveled to Israel on a substitute Flydubai plane that was sent to Tabuk airport to pick them up, their family members told CNN.<\/p>\n

Three families have refused to board the new flight and are insisting on flying home only with an Israeli air carrier, the families said.<\/p>\n

What we don’t know<\/p>\n

Who the attacker was: The identity of the attacker has not yet been shared by authorities.<\/p>\n

How the attack took place: Details of any weapon used to attack the captain have not been shared.<\/p>\n

How the attacker was able to bring this weapon onto the plane and exactly how the attack took place are also currently unknown.<\/p>\n

What the motive was: No potential motivation for the attempted hijacking has yet been given by any authorities.<\/p>\n

How many people were on board: The exact number of people who were on the aircraft has not been shared. Though Flydubai said that all passengers are safe and accounted for, it is unknown if any were injured in this morning’s events.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu said that “almost all” of the passengers on the flight were Israelis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the pilots of the Israel-bound Flydubai flight FZ1073 stabbed the other pilot and appears to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-616694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}