Flydubai Co-Pilot Identified After Cockpit Axe Attack

Captain Smit Machchhar was on the cockpit floor, already wounded, when he understood the aircraft was falling. The Mumbai-born Indian pilot had been stabbed by his co-pilot. The assault continued as he lay there. He told himself there was one move left.

“When I was on the ground, I realized the aircraft was falling down. And I knew in that moment, one last push, Smit! Just do it. The door is right there,” Machchhar later told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Even then the co-pilot was still beating him. Machchhar forced the door open anyway. Passengers and crew rushed the cockpit and overpowered the attacker; one of them put the man in a chokehold and dragged him out.

The struggle had already sent the jet into a dive. Machchhar had been fighting for his own life and knew he could not let everyone else die. The aircraft was Flydubai Flight FZ1073, a Boeing 737 MAX 8. On September 30, 2026, it left Dubai bound for Tel Aviv with 174 people on board. About two hours after takeoff the jet turned away from its designated route and began to fall. Flight-tracking data captured a plunge from approximately 33,000–34,000 feet to 17,000 feet that lasted roughly a minute.

It lost nearly 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds.

The plane carried a transponder, the radio device that continuously broadcasts a four-digit squawk code so air traffic controllers can identify the flight and know if something has gone wrong. The flight first transmitted 7700, the international signal for a general emergency. Seconds later the code flipped to 7500, the designation for unlawful interference with an aircraft, including attempted hijacking. Other crew members helped bring the airplane back under control. After climbing out of the dive and flying near 15,000 feet for a period, they made an emergency landing at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia. All 174 people on board survived.

The co-pilot was an Omani national who had joined flydubai only about eight or nine months before the flight. His name was not made public. The reason for the attack remained unknown. Investigators in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Israel began examining every possibility, from a mental break to a planned act, including whether the stabbing had been directed by anyone else.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out what was taking shape. “As time goes by, the picture becomes clearer,” he said. “The perpetrator underwent Islamist radicalization. He came to crash the plane. We are now investigating whether he was sent, and whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price.” He told Fox News the same core judgment in plainer terms. “It looks very likely that he was going to down the plane,” Netanyahu said. “I don't make final conclusions yet. But that's the indication we have now.”

Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE President, said of the captain: “He embodied the meaning of courage and responsibility in the face of a dangerous terrorist act and a potential disaster. His professionalism and moral sense in the darkest of circumstances make him a true hero.” Four Israeli passengers were slated to receive a heroism award for helping overpower the attacker.

Doron Spielman, a spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said Israel was employing additional procedures after intelligence about threats against Israelis and against Jews in Israel and around the world. “All of the Jewish communities around the world know that they’ve been on heightened alert since the seventh of October, but especially right now,” Spielman said.

A video posted on X claimed NewsGuard had reported that the U.S. Democratic Party orchestrated the attempted attack. NewsGuard CEO Matt Skibinski confirmed the organization made no such claim. The post, he said, was one of many that appeared connected to a Russian influence campaign. Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard’s co-editor-in-chief, who was impersonated in the fake, said a report days earlier calling out Russian impersonation of real news sources must have struck a nerve. “This is not the first time they have impersonated NewsGuard and me, but at least now everyone knows one of the tricks of Russian disinformation operations,” Crovitz said.

flydubai suspended all flights to and from Israel. Every day the grounding continued left at least 1,700 Israelis without a flight home. “Every day flydubai is suspended, it means we have at least 1,700 Israelis stranded,” Ziontours Jerusalem CEO Mark Feldman told The Times of Israel. Dorin Turgeman was in Dubai. Her return on flydubai had been canceled; she had managed to rebook on Arkia yet still feared another cancellation. “The situation is stressful,” she said, describing the uncertainty as “very frustrating.” Ophir Shir, who lives in Dubai and flies that route often, said, “In the short term, I will definitely be afraid to take such a flight.”

Israeli carriers opened one-way seats from Dubai to Tel Aviv to bring people back. El Al priced the ticket at $249. Arkia set it at $279. Israir asked $299. Before the suspension, flydubai had been operating eight to ten daily flights from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport into Dubai, a volume that had made the city one of the top destinations for Israeli travelers and a major transit point onward. Those frequencies were no longer available. Israeli security and aviation authorities gave El Al, Arkia and Israir approval to begin one-way repatriation flights on Friday. Under the plan, the carriers would operate commercial flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai without passengers and return with Israelis who had originally been scheduled to travel back on flydubai and on Emirates connections through Dubai. El Al cancelled the repatriation flights it had planned to operate.

Arkia flight IZ604 left Dubai International for Tel Aviv on Friday. It was the first Israeli flight on the route after the suspension. Arkia planned to operate at least five flights on Saturday. Israir prepared to operate eight to ten weekly flights on the route. Dubai International Airport listed Arkia flight IZ604 as having departed for Tel Aviv.