Flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after a violent incident in the cockpit sent the plane into a steep descent. It was carrying 174 passengers, including 27 children, and everyone on board was reported safe after landing at Tabuk airport.
What exactly happened is still under investigation, and accounts differ. Flydubai confirmed an "inflight incident" and later said the emergency was triggered by a fight between the pilots. Two Israeli officials told Reuters that their government believes it may have been an attempted terror attack by one of the pilots. A passenger told Israeli media that someone had stabbed a pilot with a pocketknife and that a doctor and nurse on board gave first aid.
What We Know
About two and a half hours after leaving Dubai, the plane suddenly dropped nearly 4,000 meters, or about 13,000 feet. The crew's transponder first broadcast a general emergency code, then switched to the code that signals unlawful interference, which is how pilots tell air traffic control that a hijacking may be underway. That signal prompted Israel to scramble fighter jets and briefly close its airspace.
Other crew members reportedly subdued the pilot involved with help from Israeli passengers, while one pilot stayed at the controls until landing. Tabuk airport said both the captain and the co-pilot were injured and taken to the hospital. A replacement plane is being sent to take passengers on to Israel, and a second flydubai flight to Tel Aviv turned back to Dubai later in the day.
Why Two Pilots Matter
Incidents like this are extraordinarily rare, but they're a reminder of something most travelers never think about: modern airliners are built around the idea that no single person should ever be the only thing standing between a plane and disaster.
That's why every airliner has two pilots, each fully able to fly the plane alone. Most of the time, the second pilot is there to catch mistakes, share the workload and take over if the other becomes ill. On Wednesday, according to the accounts so far, it meant someone could keep flying the plane while the situation in the cockpit was brought under control.
The cockpit is also where aviation's safety rules face their hardest trade-off. Reinforced, locked cockpit doors became standard after the September 11 attacks to keep threats out. But a locked door can't protect against a threat that's already inside, as the world learned in 2015 when a Germanwings co-pilot locked his captain out and deliberately crashed into the French Alps. Since then, the industry has debated how to monitor pilot mental health and how many people should be in the cockpit at any time.
That debate matters now more than ever. Some manufacturers and airlines have explored flying the cruise portion of long-haul flights with just one pilot at the controls, arguing that modern automation makes it safe. Wednesday's emergency is likely to come up in that debate, especially among those who say two sets of hands in the cockpit are irreplaceable.
What Happens Next
Investigators will need to establish what caused the fight and whether it was a deliberate attack. Israel's transportation minister has asked the country's security agency to suspend flydubai flights to and from Israel while the facts are established.
For travelers, the most important fact is the one that's easy to overlook. Even in one of the most frightening situations imaginable, the plane landed safely, and every passenger walked off it.
