An Omani co-pilot aboard a FlyDubai Boeing 737 MAX bound for Tel Aviv stabbed his captain inside a locked cockpit on September 30, then drove the aircraft into a near-vertical plunge toward the earth — until a bleeding Indian pilot, an Israeli passenger who had never touched aircraft controls, and two off-duty airline pilots together pulled the plane back from catastrophe and landed it safely in Saudi Arabia.
Senior Israeli officials have characterized the episode as a jihadist terrorist attack attempt, and the political fallout is intensifying: a critical security gap allowed an Omani national — a citizen of a country with no diplomatic relations with Israel — to spend roughly nine months flying an Israel-bound route without triggering a security review.
The Moment Terror Entered the Cockpit
Flight FZ1073 lifted off from Dubai International at approximately 7:05 a.m. local time, departing slightly behind its standard schedule, bound for Ben Gurion Airport with an expected arrival of roughly 9:30 a.m. Israel time. About two and a half hours into the cruise, as the aircraft crossed into Jordanian airspace approaching Israel, the co-pilot made his move.
The plane's transponder shifted first to code 7700 — the general emergency signal — and then, seven minutes later, to code 7500, the international designation for unlawful interference with an aircraft. The Israeli Air Force scrambled fighter jets. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz convened an emergency security session. The aircraft turned sharply away from Israeli airspace.
What followed was documented by flight-tracking systems in alarming detail. The jet shed altitude at a rate far beyond anything a crew would intentionally fly, with multiple tracking sources recording a descent of tens of thousands of feet within roughly a minute to a minute and a half. Passengers later described the cabin shaking violently, the aircraft tilting at an angle none had ever experienced on a commercial flight, and screams audible from the front of the plane.
Who Is Captain Smit Machchhar? The Man Who Opened the Door
The stabbed captain of FZ1073 is Indian national Smit Machchhar, who is based in Dubai and has served as a FlyDubai Boeing 737 MAX captain since 2022. After being stabbed and suffering what a source described to CNN as "massive blood loss," he did not surrender control of the situation. Instead, he located and triggered the emergency cockpit door release — a calculated act under extreme physical distress that transformed a sealed, locked environment into one that passengers could breach.
Netanyahu praised Machchhar directly by name in a post on X, writing that the captain "fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster," and calling him "a true hero." India's Embassy in Saudi Arabia later confirmed that Machchhar had been admitted to a hospital in Tabuk and was in stable condition.
Profile of the Attacker: Nine Months, No Red Flags — Until Now
The Omani co-pilot accused of the attack had been employed by FlyDubai for approximately nine months. No official authority has released his name. That he held Omani nationality comes from Israeli security officials who briefed CNN, at least one of them speaking anonymously.
The nationality carries enormous weight. Oman and Israel have no diplomatic relations, and Israeli officials are now scrutinizing how a citizen of a non-treaty country was cleared to crew a direct flight to Israel. Israel's Transportation Minister Miri Regev demanded a review of whether the UAE had breached its aviation agreement with Israel, which reportedly requires that only pilots from countries with formal diplomatic ties to Israel serve on inbound flights. FlyDubai, owned by the Dubai government, operates flights to Ben Gurion under the framework of the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the UAE.
Was This a Jihadist Attack?
Israeli senior officials have used the language of terrorism openly. Defense Minister Katz characterized what happened as a jihadist terrorist attack attempt in public remarks. Netanyahu stated in a video address that the co-pilot had "apparently intended to bring the aircraft down as it approached Israel." Israel's Foreign Ministry framed it as a strike directed not only at passengers but at the UAE and the Abraham Accords framework itself.
President Trump told reporters from the Oval Office that he had spoken at length with Netanyahu about the incident. "It seems as though the co-pilot was perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack-job, and he stabbed the pilot," Trump said. He went on to describe "an Israeli plumber" who rushed in, removed the attacker from the controls, and pulled the plane out of its dive. Trump also noted that the plane's rudder appeared to have been damaged during the extreme descent.
No official investigative authority had formally published findings by end of day September 30, and FlyDubai itself described the event only as an "altercation in the cockpit," stopping short of confirming a stabbing in its public statement. The preliminary Israeli investigation, however, strongly points toward an intentional attack, per officials who briefed CNN.
The Heroes: A Plumber, a Businessman, and Two Pilots — at 30,000 Feet
The passenger whose intervention drew the most attention was Yaniv Hayun, an Israeli plumber traveling home from Dubai. Hayun entered the cockpit, grabbed the controls, and pulled back on the stick — just as he had seen done on television — holding the plane in a climb until members of the flight crew were able to take over the controls. Netanyahu personally met Hayun at the Ben Gurion arrival gate, embracing him in front of cameras while Hayun still wore the blood-soaked shirt from the flight.
Passenger Asaf Rajuan, blood still visible on his forehead when he spoke to reporters, helped physically restrain the attacker inside the cockpit. "This is something you do without thinking," he said, "just running to save your daughter's life, your family's life." Tzvika Manes, an Israeli businessman who was also aboard, told the Israeli financial outlet Calcalist: "I'm covered in blood. It was insane."
Equally important were two off-duty airline pilots who happened to be traveling as passengers — one a South African national, one from New Zealand — who, according to an Israeli official cited by aviation outlet MiGFlug, forced their way into the cockpit alongside cabin crew and physically pinned the attacker to the floor. With the co-pilot subdued and trained hands at the controls, the aircraft leveled off and proceeded to Tabuk. Both pilots were transported to hospital after landing — the captain with serious stab wounds, the co-pilot also injured and immediately placed in Saudi custody.
A doctor among the passengers treated Captain Machchhar while the plane was still in the air. Three other passengers sustained minor injuries during the struggle. Passenger Almog Italie told reporters the plane dropped sharply, stabilized, then fell again several times before finally leveling out. Another passenger, Naama Bershadski, said she shut her eyes and prayed, certain she was going to die.
Passenger Miryam Shira Ohayon told reporters after landing that those aboard heard screams from the front of the plane — and that the co-pilot, in her account, "tried to murder the pilot and basically carry out a suicide attack on the plane." The weapon multiple passengers described was a pocket knife, though no official authority had formally confirmed the weapon type as of this writing.
What Comes Next
FlyDubai announced the suspension of all flights to and from Israel while the investigation proceeds. A replacement FlyDubai aircraft retrieved all 174 passengers from Tabuk and brought them to Ben Gurion Airport, where cheering crowds greeted them. Israel's Ministry of Transport announced it would verify the identity of every pilot flying into the country going forward — a sweeping policy shift that signals officials view the incident as a systemic failure, not an isolated act.
The central questions — how an Omani national cleared nine months of crew assignments on an Israel-bound route, what the weapon was and how it reached the secured cockpit, and whether a formal terror designation will follow — are now the focus of a multi-agency investigation involving Israeli, Saudi, and Emirati authorities. The Abraham Accords, the diplomatic architecture that enabled this flight to exist at all, may face their most pointed security test since they were signed.
