A Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after a fight reportedly broke out between the two pilots in the cockpit.
Flight FZ 1073 landed safely at Tabuk Airport at 9:45 a.m. local time (6:45 GMT). Both the captain and co-pilot sustained injuries and were taken to hospital, according to a statement from the airport operator.
The low-cost carrier confirmed that the aircraft “experienced an incident while en route” and that all passengers were safe and accounted for.
Israeli media reported that a physical altercation between the pilots triggered a distress signal.
Two other pilots travelling as passengers later took control of the aircraft and completed the emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
Passenger accounts described chaos on board. Yasmin Abukasis, whose daughter Miryam Shira Ohayon was on the flight, told AFP that her daughter reported one pilot trying to attack the other with a knife amid shouting.
Another passenger entered the cockpit, saw blood, and called for help; several people then restrained the attacker.
“All the while, the plane started going down very fast. People thought they were going to die,” Abukasis said, adding that the two passenger pilots later took over the controls.
Flight-tracking data showed the aircraft suddenly losing altitude, dropping from nearly 34,000 feet to under 17,000 feet within about a minute.Israeli media, citing anonymous sources, said passengers helped separate the pilots during the struggle.
Photos of a passenger in a bloodied T-shirt circulated in local reports. Channel 12 said authorities were examining whether one pilot may have attempted to crash the plane, with the other intervening to prevent it.
Israel’s military scrambled fighter jets amid initial fears of a possible hijacking, a hypothesis later dismissed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had held consultations on the incident, which was “under control,” and that measures were being taken to return the Israeli passengers safely to Israel.
Neither the airline nor the relevant authorities immediately released details about what sparked the fight or the nationalities of the pilots, though some Israeli outlets reported one was Omani and the other Emirati.
The incident occurred against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions and just ahead of closely contested Israeli elections scheduled for the end of October.