flydubai FZ1073: What Really Happened Inside the Cockpit

Key facts

• 01What: Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry says the captain of flydubai FZ1073 was assaulted by his co-pilot in the cockpit. On 3 October the UAE Attorney-General called it an attempted terrorist act.
• 02When: Wednesday 30 September 2026. The attack began at about 08:21 Saudi time, at 34,000 feet.
• 03Where: Over northern Saudi Arabia, about 130 nautical miles north-east of Tabuk, on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv with 174 passengers.
• 04The dive: Tracking data shows the plane fell more than 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds. It was level at around 15,000 feet by 08:24.
• 05Outcome: The aircraft landed at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Airport in Tabuk. Nobody died. The captain was seriously wounded and was later stable after surgery.
• 06Investigation: The UAE is leading the investigation. As of 3 October, the co-pilot had not been officially named or charged, and he is presumed innocent until a court decides.

What happened on flydubai flight 1073?

On Wednesday 30 September 2026, flydubai flight FZ1073 took off from Dubai International at 7:05 in the morning, bound for Tel Aviv. The aircraft was a Boeing 737 MAX 8, registration A6-FKF, not yet four years old.

Saudi and Israeli officials say 174 passengers were on board, more than 150 of them Israeli. The Aviation Herald reports that 27 were children. Two more flydubai pilots were sitting in the cabin as passengers. According to a source quoted by the Jerusalem Post, they were there as a routine precaution, in case a re-route pushed the crew past its legal duty hours.

For two hours the flight was uneventful. One passenger called it “a very calm” flight. Then, about 130 nautical miles north-east of Tabuk in northern Saudi Arabia, the line on the tracking screens started to move.

Passengers say the power, the entertainment system and the air conditioning cut out, and then the plane dropped. Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 and AirNav Radar shows it fell more than 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds. Inside the flight deck, the captain had been attacked.

Inside the flydubai cockpit: the captain and the co-pilot

In the left seat was Captain Smit Machchhar from India. He is 39, a father of two, and in his own words has been a pilot for 17 years, 11 of them as captain. In the right seat was the first officer, or co-pilot. Israeli and Omani officials say he is Omani. He had been with flydubai for less than a year and has not been officially named.

No recording from the cockpit has been released. According to the UAE Attorney-General, at 08:21 Saudi time the first officer “began executing his plan” and attacked the captain inside the flight deck. The captain ended up on the floor with serious wounds to his head, hands and neck.

The Attorney-General says the first officer then tried “to take control of the aircraft's flight controls.” He has also named the weapon: not something smuggled on board, but the cockpit's own emergency crash axe. Almost every airliner carries one, to pry open panels in a fire or to break a way out.

The scenes of this moment in our film are 3D reconstructions, built from the investigators' first findings, the tracking data and the accounts of the people on board. Positions and some details are illustrative.

Why did flydubai FZ1073 dive more than 14,000 feet?

The nose dropped. At the steepest part of the fall, the tracking data shows the plane descending at more than 30,000 feet a minute. The UAE Attorney-General links the dive to the first officer's attempt to take control of the flight controls. The flight recorder data has not been published.

In the cabin, people who were standing fell over and overhead bins burst open. Adam Polo, who was in row 13 with his wife and two young children, called it “the craziest roller coaster you ever did, but multiplied by a thousand.” Another passenger, Almog Italie, described it as “like a massive turbulence, for twenty, thirty seconds. Then balanced. And then once again dropped.”

Every 737 has a speed it must never exceed, and a loud mechanical warning that sounds when it does. Whether that warning sounded on FZ1073 has not been published. One aviation analyst told Canada's Globe and Mail that the plane was flown “beyond its structural-limit speed.” Investigators have not said.

Photos taken after landing show that a large part of the rudder, on the tail, was missing.

How the captain opened the door, and who saved the plane

Since 11 September 2001, international rules have required cockpit doors to be reinforced and kept locked in flight, so nobody can force them from the cabin. Passengers heard screaming from the front. Tali Manes raised the alarm first, and by her husband's account she shouted to one of the off-duty pilots to get in and see what was happening. But nobody could get through the door.

On the other side, the captain was lying by the door and, by his own account, still being attacked. “I said to myself, while I was getting beaten: this is the last push, Smit. Do it. The door is right there.” Using what Israel's prime minister's spokesman called “the last moments of his energy,” he opened it. “Somehow, I opened the door,” he says, “and everyone came in.”

Yaniv Hayun, who runs a sewage-pumping business, says he saw “two unmanned yokes. No pilots.” He says he grabbed the attacker and pulled him out. Tzvika Manes, Asaf Rajuan and the dentist Dr Shota Musayev helped hold him down, first with headphone cables and later with zip ties.

The plane was still falling. Hayun says he went back in and pulled the controls back, and “the plane began to level out,” before an off-duty flydubai pilot took control. AP's analysis of the tracking data shows the jet level at around 15,000 feet by 08:24. Musayev, the only doctor on board, stopped the captain's bleeding.

Squawk 7500: was flydubai FZ1073 hijacked?

At around 08:30, the plane's transponder began broadcasting 7700, the code for a general emergency. Minutes later it switched to 7500. To air traffic controllers everywhere, squawk 7500 means unlawful interference, which usually means a hijacking. It's the code that made FZ1073 stand out on Flightradar24.

Who set those codes has not been published. Inside the plane, the fight was already over. But from the ground, nobody could see into the cockpit. All anyone could see was a code that signalled a hijacked airliner full of Israeli passengers.

Israel scrambled two air force fighter jets, and the chief of the general staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, held an urgent assessment. According to Israel's Ynet, the military prepared for several scenarios: a crash in Jordan or Saudi Arabia, a hijacking with hostages, and, Ynet reports, the possibility that the jets “might have to shoot down the aircraft” to prevent a 9/11-style attack.

At 08:42 the plane turned west and briefly crossed into Jordanian airspace. Why has not been explained.

The emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

Two minutes after the turn west, Tabuk air traffic control received a distress call asking for an emergency landing. At 08:46 the plane turned almost all the way around and headed back toward Tabuk. Saudi Arabia has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

At a quarter to ten Saudi time, FZ1073 landed at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Airport in Tabuk. Nobody had died. In passengers' own videos you can hear them clapping and singing.

Both pilots went to hospital. The captain had serious wounds and was later stable after surgery. The first officer was hurt in the struggle and was arrested by Saudi authorities. In Tabuk, a video of a Saudi medic taking an Israeli passenger's blood pressure went viral.

flydubai sent two replacement aircraft, and the passengers landed at Ben Gurion that evening, about ten hours late. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was there to meet them. He embraced Yaniv Hayun, who told him how he knew what to do: “I watch Air Crash Investigation, Mr Prime Minister.”

Who was the flydubai co-pilot, and what have investigators found?

At first, the official wording was careful. flydubai called it “an altercation” in the flight deck, and the UAE's aviation regulator called it a “security incident.” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz called it “an attempted jihadist terror attack.”

Three days later, the Wall Street Journal, AP and ABC News, all citing unnamed officials, reported that the first officer had previously worked at Oman Air. According to those reports, he had been taken off flying duties there over concerns he had adopted “radical ideological views” and was moved to a desk job. ABC News, citing American officials, reports he had been found with extremist material two years earlier. A Gulf diplomat told AP that flydubai's background checks looked only at whether he had a criminal conviction. Oman has said nothing publicly, and flydubai hasn't responded to the claims.

CNN reports that about nine hours after the incident, while he was in custody, a social-media profile in his name posted cockpit videos ending with images of al-Qaeda figures. CNN says it's unclear who posted them or whether they were scheduled in advance. Israel halted flydubai flights for six days and began vetting every pilot flying into the country.

On 3 October, the UAE Attorney-General said the first officer “attempted to carry out a terrorist act.” As of that date, no formal charge had been announced and he had not been officially named. The investigation into his motives and “any links” is ongoing. He is presumed innocent until a court decides.

Questions people ask

Sources

Everything in this article and the film comes from these public sources. Spotted a mistake? Email info.reconstructed@gmail.com with the timestamp and your source.

1. flydubai · 2026-09-30: Updates on FZ 1073 DXB-TLV on 30 September 2026
2. Al Jazeera · 2026-09-30: What happened on the diverted Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv?
3. Al Jazeera · 2026-10-01: How was the Flydubai co-pilot who attacked his captain cleared to fly?
4. Al Jazeera · 2026-10-01: Flydubai co-pilot 'assaulted' captain before landing: Initial Saudi probe
5. Khaleej Times · 2026-10-02: Flydubai FZ1073 timeline: From flight-deck altercation to terror-link probe
6. Gulf News · 2026-10-01: Flydubai Flight FZ1073 Diverted to Saudi Arabia After Cockpit Altercation
7. Gulf News · 2026-10-02: flydubai pilot reveals what happened in cockpit: 'I couldn't let everybody else die'
8. Gulf News · 2026-09-30: GCAA confirms 'security incident' on flydubai flight, crew members injured
9. Associated Press (via WTOP) · 2026-10-01: Inside FlyDubai's 4-hour ordeal: A cockpit fight, steep descents and alternating distress codes
10. Associated Press (via WTOP) · 2026-10-01: A plumber and a dentist are praised as heroes in FlyDubai near-disaster
11. Associated Press (via PBS NewsHour) · 2026-10-01: Investigators work to determine why a pilot apparently tried to crash a FlyDubai flight to Israel
12. Reuters (via Al-Monitor) · 2026-10-01: Israeli passenger says he knew what to do on flydubai plane after watching TV show
13. Reuters (via RNZ) · 2026-10-01: Co-pilot of Flydubai plane underwent radical Islamist indoctrination - Israel PM
14. Bloomberg (via Spokesman-Review) · 2026-10-01: FlyDubai pilot who tried to crash plane identified as Omani
15. CBS News · 2026-10-02: What we're learning about the FlyDubai co-pilot who allegedly stabbed the captain and tried to crash the plane
16. Ynet News · 2026-10-01: Flydubai copilot transferred to UAE; Israeli official says he likely acted alone
17. Ynet News · 2026-09-30: 'We need help': Israeli passengers recount fight to stop Flydubai crash after suspected hijacking
18. Ynet News · 2026-09-30: Israel suspends Flydubai flights for 6 days after suspected terror attack
19. Calcalist (CTech) · 2026-09-30: Israeli jets scrambled after Flydubai flight sends distress signal, lands in Saudi Arabia
20. The Week (India) · 2026-10-01: Flydubai incident: Israel prepared for 3 scenarios, including shooting down jet to avoid 9/11-style attack
21. The Jerusalem Post · 2026-09-30: Why were there two extra pilots aboard during the attempted flydubai hijacking?
22. The Jerusalem Post · 2026-10-02: Omani pilot who allegedly hijacked flydubai flight has no second nationality
23. The Times of Israel · 2026-09-30: Sept. 30: Flydubai announces suspension of Israel flights amid probe into attempted hijacking (liveblog)
24. The Times of Israel / AFP · 2026-09-30: Passengers laud 'heroism' of Israelis who subdued flydubai flight attacker, as videos show moments of fear
25. The Times of Israel · 2026-09-30: Photos of flydubai plane after landing show tail has broken rudder
26. The Times of Israel · 2026-09-30: Flydubai attack becomes election flashpoint as opponents draw Oct. 7 parallels
27. The Aviation Herald · 2026-09-30: Accident: Flydubai B38M near Tabuk on Sep 30th 2026, fight in the cockpit, first officer under investigation for suspected suicide attempt
28. AeroCorner · 2026-10-01: Flydubai FZ1073 Cockpit Stabbing: What We Know
29. Flightradar24 (X) · 2026-09-30: Flydubai flight #FZ1073 ... A6-FKF ... diverted to Tabuk (timeline UTC)
30. Flightradar24 Blog · 2026-09-30: FlyDubai flight to Tel Aviv diverts to Tabuk amid onboard incident
31. Aviation Safety Network · 2026-09-30: Incident Boeing 737 MAX 8 A6-FKF, Wednesday 30 September 2026
32. Airfleets.net: FlyDubai A6-FKF (Boeing 737 NG / Max - MSN 61013)
33. Wikipedia: Flydubai Flight 1073
34. France 24 · 2026-10-01: AI deepfake of BBC report falsely links Indians to FlyDubai hijacking attempt
35. The Irish Times · 2026-10-02: Trump says Iran may be linked to co-pilot who tried to crash Israel-bound plane
36. Saudi Gazette · 2026-09-30: Flydubai flight makes emergency landing at Tabuk airport; two pilots injured
37. The National · 2026-10-01: UAE investigation to determine if flydubai incident was linked to 'terrorist activity'
38. CNN · 2026-10-01: Captain Smit Machchhar: The 'jovial' pilot and father who thwarted the Flydubai attacker
39. CNN · 2026-10-01: October 1, 2026 — Pilot suspected of Flydubai attack transferred to UAE as investigation unfolds
40. Scripps News (CNN) · 2026-10-02: 'I couldn't let everybody else die': Flydubai pilot speaks out for first time
41. Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) · 2026-09-30: Israeli assessment: Flydubai incident was a terror attack
42. Sharjah24 · 2026-09-30: GCAA: Security incident forces Flydubai flight to divert to Tabuk
43. Ynet News: Israel's worst-case scenarios in the Flydubai incident (Elisha Ben Kimon, Itamar Eichner)
44. Anadolu Agency · 2026-09-30: Saudi Arabia launches investigation into Flydubai flight's emergency landing in Tabuk
45. Anadolu Agency · 2026-10-01: Trump says co-pilot in Flydubai incident may have been a 'terrorist' or 'whack job'
46. NBC News: What we know about the cockpit stabbing on Israel-bound flight
47. Reuters (via U.S. News) · 2026-10-01: Netanyahu Says Flydubai Co-Pilot Underwent Islamist Radical Indoctrination
48. The Times of Israel: 'Immense courage and resolve': Pilot feted for crucial role in saving the lives of all aboard flydubai 1073
49. ICAO (copy) · 2010-07: Annex 6, Operation of Aircraft, Part I, 9th ed. (2010), §13.2 Security of the flight crew compartment
50. ICAO RAAC/7 (FAA information paper) · 2002-06-22: RAAC/7-IP/05: flightdeck security measures following September 11, 2001
51. Airbus Flight Operations Briefing Notes (via SKYbrary): Standard Operating Procedures: Conducting Effective Briefings
52. Jewish Telegraphic Agency · 2026-09-30: Passengers from the attempted flydubai hijacking land back in Israel
53. The Times of Israel · 2026-09-30: Saudi Arabia reportedly turned down Israeli request to allow its planes to pick up flydubai passengers
54. Flightradar24 (X) · 2026-09-30: Images of flight #FZ1073 at Tabuk Airport appear to show that part of the aircraft's rudder is missing or damaged (snippet)
55. ABC News · 2026-10-01: FlyDubai's recovery from extreme deep dive during attack 'extraordinary': Aviation expert
56. The Times of Israel · 2026-09-30: Copilot subdued after stabbing pilot in alleged attempt to crash plane full of Israelis (snippet)