{"id":787404,"date":"2026-09-30T12:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787404\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T12:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T12:14:09","slug":"israel-dubai-flight-pilots-taken-to-hospital-says-airport-after-reported-cockpit-stabbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/787404\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Dubai flight: Pilots taken to hospital, says airport, after reported cockpit stabbing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/core\/website\/assets\/static\/news\/incident-types\/light-mode\/bbc-verify.71bca62fc4.svg\" alt=\"BBC Verify\" height=\"2.5rem\" width=\"11.6875rem\" draggable=\"false\" class=\"ssrcss-901ql1-ContributorImageComponent e2hr5uu0\"\/>Plane\u2019s sudden altitude drop likely not accidental, expert sayspublished at 13:03 BST<\/p>\n<p>13:03 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">By Joshua Cheetham<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">BBC Verify has shared flight-tracking data with aviation experts to better understand what may have happened onboard the Flydubai plane, after it experienced an extreme fall and then rapid fluctuation in altitude in such a short period of time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The data on Flightradar24 shows the aircraft initially plunged by about 17,000ft (5,200m), climbed 5,000ft and then fell another 7,000ft to settle into a relatively stable altitude of 15,000ft. All of this took place over the course of less than five minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Marco Chan, a senior lecturer in aviation operations at Kingston University, says that while sudden drops in altitude can be caused by incidents like rapid decompression, the plane having transmitted an emergency code for \u201cunlawful interference\u201d suggests the drop was not accidental or down to a technical fault.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While it is still unclear what happened on board, Chan adds that the sudden changes in altitude may have been caused by the pilots jostling for control of the yoke &#8211; a wheel-like device that controls the plane\u2019s steering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plane\u2019s sudden altitude drop likely not accidental, expert sayspublished at 13:03 BST 13:03 BST By Joshua Cheetham BBC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-787404","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\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}