Stabbed on flydubai FZ1073, Captain Smit Machchhar helped keep the jet from crashing

On the morning of 30 September 2026, flydubai flight FZ1073 left Dubai International Airport for Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv and, a little over two hours later, was on the ground at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Airport in Tabuk, in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The Boeing 737 MAX 8, registration A6-FKF, had broadcast a hijack squawk, dropped thousands of feet over the Saudi desert, and been landed by a reserve crew after the Omani first officer stabbed the Indian captain, Smit Machchhar. All 174 passengers and six crew survived. Both pilots were taken to hospital. Saudi police arrested the first officer on the apron.

The flight, call sign Skydubai 1073, pushed back on a normal Dubai to Tel Aviv sector and departed at 7:05 a.m. Gulf Standard Time. Tracking data held a steady cruise near 34,000 feet until 9:21 a.m. Dubai time. In the next minute the jet fell to about 17,000 feet. It climbed briefly toward 21,750 feet, then was levelled near 15,000 feet. Hindustan Times, reconstructing the same track, put the first plunge at 14,300 feet in 37 seconds. Either reading describes an uncontrolled descent, not a planned step-down.

What happened inside the cockpit is still being assembled from passenger accounts, airline statements and official briefings, and those accounts do not yet match in every detail. Benjamin Netanyahu said one pilot stabbed the other and tried to crash the aircraft. He later wrote that Machchhar, despite serious wounds, fought back, opened the cockpit door and let passengers and crew overpower the attacker. A passenger waiting for the forward lavatory heard a struggle. She alerted a flight attendant. Her husband, Tzvika Manes, a Bank Leumi executive in the front row, said he then saw Machchhar fall out of the cockpit with the first officer on top of him. Other passengers, including Yaniv Hayun, described the attacker standing over the control panel and striking it. A passenger dentist, Musaev Shota, treated the captain on the floor. Off-duty flydubai pilots who were travelling as passengers took the seats and flew the aircraft to Tabuk. The first officer was restrained. One account said wired headphones were used as a binding.

The Israeli Air Force scrambled fighters after the hijack code and a short loss of radio contact. Communication returned, and the relief crew declared an emergency at 9:44 a.m. The jet crossed briefly toward the Jordanian side of the border area before turning for Tabuk, where it landed at 10:45 a.m. Gulf time, 9:45 a.m. local. The airport said both the captain and the first officer were injured and had been moved to hospital. Saudi officers then held passengers and cabin crew for questioning for about seven hours. Roughly 150 of the 174 passengers were Israeli citizens. Flydubai sent two replacement aircraft to carry them on to Israel.

Machchhar is an Indian national from Ghatkopar East in Mumbai, based in Dubai for the airline. People familiar with his condition told Hindustan Times that he underwent surgery and was stable. The Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia also described his condition as stable. Narendra Modi wrote that his actions had helped save hundreds of lives and that India was proud of him. The first officer, an Omani national, had worked for flydubai for less than a year. His name has not been released by the airline.

The gap between official accounts is the part of this story that will decide what happens next. An initial Saudi assessment concluded that the first officer intended to crash the aircraft. Investigators there have not established a motive, have not said whether he acted alone, and have looked at whether the act was meant as suicide. Netanyahu has called it an attempted terrorist attack and said it was too early to say who, if anyone, was behind it. He also said the president of the United Arab Emirates had agreed to let Israel take part in the inquiry. The UAE civil aviation regulator has opened its own investigation into whether the incident was linked to terrorist activity, and has not adopted the Israeli description. Flydubai has confirmed an altercation on the flight deck, said the on-duty relief crew landed the aircraft, and asked the public not to speculate while motives remain unknown.

The airline has suspended its flights to Ben Gurion for six days. That is a commercial decision with a security reading attached. Dubai to Tel Aviv was one of the routes that stayed open through the wider war between Israel, the United States and Iran. A cockpit attack on that sector, even if it turns out to be the act of one employee, forces every carrier on the route to revisit who sits in the right-hand seat, how the door is managed when one pilot is incapacitated, and which state leads the file when the aircraft, the airline, the victims and the landing state all sit under different flags.

Four jurisdictions are already in the file: Saudi Arabia, where the arrest was made and the first assessment written; the Emirates, where the aircraft is registered and the airline is based; Israel, whose citizens made up most of the cabin and whose air force answered the hijack code; and the United States, which has joined the law-enforcement review. None of them has published a joint timeline. Until they do, the durable facts are the ones that do not depend on motive: a 737 MAX 8, 180 people on board, a stabbed captain who got the door open, a reserve crew, a landing at Tabuk, and a first officer in Saudi custody.