The FlyDubai Near Miss Was a Nightmare and a Miracle |
The FlyDubai 737 MAX that almost crashed on Wednesday plummeted three miles in less than a minute and came so close to breaking the sound barrier that aerodynamic forces ripped off part of the plane’s rudder. In about a minute the plane would have hit the desert 250 miles southeast of Tel Aviv. Instead, passengers managed to subdue the attacker, while two pilots traveling in the passenger cabin regained control of the plane and landed it safely at Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
#WATCH: Israeli passengers rush the cockpit to rescue their Flydubai flight after the copilot attempted to hijack it. pic.twitter.com/rs9L3EzL2B— Israel National News - Arutz Sheva (@ArutzSheva_En) September 30, 2026
#WATCH: Israeli passengers rush the cockpit to rescue their Flydubai flight after the copilot attempted to hijack it. pic.twitter.com/rs9L3EzL2B
“It’s a miracle this aircraft survived, but let’s give credit to the two pilots who when they entered the cockpit found a badly configured aircraft headed for certain death,” says Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the Department of Transportation who now practices aviation law at Motley Rice.
FlyDubai Flight 1073 had taken off from Dubai at 7:05 a.m. local time and climbed to 32,000 feet as it flew over the Nafud desert of northern Saudi Arabia on its way to Tel Aviv. Two hours into the flight, as it approached the border of Jordan, one passenger said he heard someone shouting “Allahu Akbar” just before the plane nosed suddenly downward.
According to Israeli news media, one of the flight’s pilots, a citizen of Oman, stabbed the captain, a 39-year-old Indian........