By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2026-10-02 01:06:52 | Updated at 2026-10-02 03:51:52
5 hours ago
Dr. Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, attorney general of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), announced on Thursday that a team of public prosecutors will investigate the averted crisis aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 on Wednesday morning as a possible organized terrorist attack.
Al-Shamsi said the UAE has jurisdiction over the case because the flight originated from Dubai, the airline is registered in the UAE, and Emirati law applies to crimes committed aboard an aircraft “even if they occur outside the country’s territory.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan has agreed to let Israel “join the interrogation” of the captured attacker, whose identity still has not been made public.
The UAE said its investigators would determine if “any terrorist activity or purpose involved prior planning or direction.”
Flight FZ1073 was en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv, with mostly Israeli passengers on board, when the co-pilot attacked the captain with a knife and attempted to crash the plane.
This undated photo released on Israel’s Foreign Ministry social media shows Indian Capt. Smit Machchhar in the cockpit of a plane in an unknown location. Machchhar was at the controls of a FlyDubai flight that was diverted to Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing on Wednesday, September 30, 2026. (Israel’s Foreign Ministry via AP)
The captain, an Indian national named Smit Machchhar, reportedly managed to open the cockpit door despite severe injuries, and an Israeli passenger named Yaniv Hayun led the charge to overpower the attacker and pull the plane out of its catastrophic dive. Netanyahu and President Donald Trump have hailed Machchhar and Hayun as heroes for saving the plane.
Israeli passenger Yaniv Hayoun, with blood stains on his shirt, who was aboard a Flydubai aircraft that made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, is welcomed at the arrivals gate at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, September 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Tomer Appelbaum)
The plane was diverted to Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk. The UAE Foreign Ministry thanked Saudi authorities for “their cooperation and handling of the incident” on Thursday.
Saudi officials announced the results of their own initial investigation on Thursday, finding only that “the pilot was assaulted by his co-pilot, resulting in both sustaining various injuries.”
Flydubai Airlines has blandly described the incident as an “altercation” and warned against “premature speculation” about the attacker’s motives.
The co-pilot, who has been described only as an “Omani national” in statements to the press, was arrested in Saudi Arabia after the plane landed. He was reportedly transferred to the UAE by a security team on Thursday after being medically cleared for travel.
Captain Machchhar has also been transferred to Abu Dhabi for additional medical treatment and is said to be recovering from his wounds. According to Netanyahu, Machchhar was “stabbed in the head” during the attack, “and his arm was basically split in two.”
“He was speaking openly, smiling and laughing, which was a great relief for us and, above all, for his family,” said Dr. Deepak Mittal, India’s ambassador to the UAE, after visiting Machchhar in the Abu Dhabi hospital.
Netanyahu told Fox News on Thursday it looked “very likely” that the attacker “was going to down the plane” if he had not been stopped.
“The attacker, the copilot who attacked the captain, is now being interrogated, but here’s what we do know: First, we know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” the prime minister said.
According to Netanyahu, the attacker pleaded with the passengers and crew who subdued him to kill him, “so it’s clear he was suicidal — that’s not a question.”
“And with all the passengers in there, and if you couple that with what I just told you about the Islamist tendencies, that radicalisation that were found in his background, I think that’ll give us a pretty good clue — but I don’t make final conclusions yet,” he said.
Netanyahu said the co-pilot was somehow able to slip past Israeli rules that say “you can’t have pilots from countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel” on inbound flights.
“Obviously there was a loophole here, and we’re taking care of that, among other things,” he said.
“We’ll get to the root of this attacker, whether he had accomplices, whether Iran was behind it. I think we’ll find out very soon,” he predicted.
The Times of Israel (TOI) reported on Thursday that Israeli security agencies have been “negligent” about enforcing the ban on pilots from states that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, and have allowed “dozens of Omani pilots to fly into Israel in recent years.”
“The Shin Bet has all the means to know, within five minutes, who all of the pilots on the Dubai airline are, and they simply chose to turn a blind eye,” an unnamed airline executive told Israel’s Channel 12 news.
Another Israeli media report cited by TOI quoted a fellow pilot who described the Flight FZ1073 co-pilot as a “religious extremist.”
“He prayed excessively throughout the day and refused to shake hands with women,” the other pilot said.
President Donald Trump told reporters on Thursday that Iran would be “hit very hard” if the regime is found to have any connection to the FZ1073 attack.
The U.S. State Department confirmed on Wednesday that four of the passengers aboard Flight FZ1073 were American citizens. “We are working with local authorities and stand ready to provide consular assistance to any and all Americans aboard the flight,” a State Department spokesperson said.
