The co-pilot of a flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv used a crash axe in an attempt to seize control of the aircraft and bring it down, the United Arab Emirates' prosecutor general said Saturday, formally labeling Wednesday's mid-air assault a "terrorist attack."
Flight FZ1073, carrying 182 people from Dubai to Tel Aviv, had been airborne for roughly two and a half hours when the co-pilot attacked Capt. Smit Machchhar with the axe, which airlines keep in the cockpit for emergencies. The jet plunged about 17,000 feet in roughly a minute, according to an account the captain later gave to India's prime minister, before passengers forced their way into the cockpit and subdued the attacker.
A captain's last push
Machchhar, an Indian national with 17 years of flying experience, was stabbed repeatedly but managed to unlock the cockpit door as the aircraft bled altitude. "I had suffered so many injuries that I had collapsed. At that time, I could feel that the aircraft was going down. I knew this was the last push," he told Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a video call Friday. "I was fighting for my life. At one point, I realized that if I didn't get up ... then passengers would lose their lives."
I am not thinking of it as a wound, I am thinking of it as a journey.
Capt. Smit Machchhar, flydubai flight FZ1073
Once the door opened, an Israeli passenger, Zvika Manes, and three others — Yaniv Hayun, Dr. Shota Musayev and Asaf Rajuan — rushed in after Manes's wife, Tali, heard a commotion coming from the cockpit. Hayun said he put the co-pilot in a chokehold, pulled him out and briefly took the controls himself before a relief pilot leveled the aircraft and landed it safely in Tabuk, in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The plane had broadcast a general-emergency code before switching to the transponder signal reserved for hijackings.
Machchhar was airlifted to a hospital in Abu Dhabi, where he is recovering. Modi told him his actions had helped avert a "great tragedy" and "made the whole country proud."
Questions over vetting and motive
The co-pilot, identified by multiple news organizations as an Omani national, had reportedly been barred from flying passenger aircraft by Oman years earlier over concerns about extremist views and shifted into an administrative role at Oman Air before later being hired by flydubai, according to a person familiar with the investigation. It remains unclear how thoroughly he was vetted before joining the Dubai-based carrier. Investigators are also examining how he came to be rostered on a Tel Aviv route at all, given Israel's practice of barring pilots from countries with which it has no diplomatic ties — Oman and Israel do not have formal relations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacker shouted "Kill me, kill me!" after being restrained and described him as suicidal, adding that it "looks very likely" he intended to crash the plane. Netanyahu said the co-pilot had undergone "Islamist radical indoctrination," though he offered no supporting evidence, and credited the crew and passengers with preventing "a 9/11 disaster." A senior UAE diplomatic adviser, Anwar Gargash, separately called the episode a "dangerous terrorist act."
Security agencies from four countries in the region, assisted by the United States and other Western governments, are working to establish the co-pilot's motive, according to UAE officials. Saudi authorities, where the plane made its emergency landing, briefly detained the co-pilot before handing him to the UAE, which is leading the investigation with the participation of several countries, including Israel. Neither flydubai nor Omani aviation authorities have said publicly what screening the co-pilot underwent after leaving Oman Air, and no charges have yet been filed.
For an industry still shaped by memories of the September 11 attacks and the 2015 Germanwings disaster, in which a co-pilot deliberately flew a passenger jet into the French Alps, the episode is likely to renew scrutiny of cockpit psychological screening and of how airlines share red flags about pilots across borders. The UAE has given no timetable for concluding its inquiry.
