Flydubai's plane just survived a cockpit stabbing over Saudi Arabia

A Flydubai flight with 174 people on board landed safely in Saudi Arabia after one pilot stabbed the other mid-air.

It happened a day ago. Israeli officials are calling it an attempted terror attack. Some are now calling it a possible suicide attempt.

So here's what we know. Flydubai flight FZ1073 was flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv. The co-pilot stabbed the captain in the cockpit. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, says the attacker appeared to be trying to crash the plane. With everyone on board.

The plane turned around. It made an emergency landing at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

And for a moment, it sent out a hijacking signal. Flight-tracking data shows it briefly switched to that code before reverting to a general emergency alert. The plane also dropped sharply during the struggle. How sharply depends who you ask. Some reports say around 14,000 feet in 30 seconds. Others say it fell from near 34,000 feet to under 17,000. Nobody has the exact number.

The captain has been identified. His name is Smit Machchhar, an Indian national. He has flown for Flydubai since June 2022. Before that, 11 years as a senior commander at SpiceJet. Over 9,750 flying hours on Boeing 737 aircraft.

Netanyahu says quote "he is a true hero" who saved 174 lives, including Israeli citizens and other nationals.

Now the co-pilot. Israeli officials and US law enforcement say he's an Omani national. He hasn't been named. He was arrested after landing and is being questioned by Saudi authorities right now.

And here's something worth knowing. Oman has no full diplomatic relations with Israel. So investigators are asking how this man ended up flying the Dubai to Tel Aviv route at all.

Both pilots were hospitalised. India's embassy in Riyadh says Machchhar is in stable condition.

But who actually stopped him and landed the plane? That part isn't clear.

A passenger named by NBC and CBS as Yaniv Hayoun is reported to have entered the cockpit and helped overpower the attacker. Netanyahu later met him at the airport, shirt still bloodied, and praised him as a hero.

But CBS credits a different passenger, Asaf Rajuan, with fighting off the attacker first. Newsweek names a passenger as Ynav Sharir. Al Jazeera names Yitzhak Lieber as one of the men who overpowered the co-pilot.

So are these different spellings of the same person? Or several different passengers? Nobody has said.

And it gets murkier. Flydubai says on-duty crew travelling on the flight secured the aircraft and landed it safely at Tabuk. But CNN reports who actually landed the plane is still unclear. One aviation analyst points out it's not unusual for spare pilots to be travelling as passengers. WION reports two off-duty pilots among the passengers took the controls. A passenger quoted by LBC says the relief pilots were European, one of them British.

Israeli officials haven't been consistent either.

Israel Katz, Israel's Defence Minister, called it an attempted jihadist terrorist attack. He says early information suggested the attacker meant to crash the plane and kill everyone aboard.

Netanyahu first agreed. He told CNN's Jim Sciutto that Machchhar had stopped a disaster, and that the right side had won.

Then he changed his story. He says quote "it looks like a suicide attempt", not a hijacking.

Flydubai itself won't say either way. It has said the reasons behind the event are unknown and still under formal investigation, and has asked people not to speculate while the facts are gathered.

The airline has suspended flights to and from Israel while the investigation goes on. Flydubai is owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE's aviation regulator, the GCAA, says the flight ran into a security incident that was brought under control.

And then Donald Trump weighed in.

The US President called the whole episode remarkable while talking to reporters. He said Netanyahu told him the co-pilot seemed like he was either a terrorist or mentally unwell. Trump said the attacker apparently learned to fly by watching a television show about air disasters.

Trump also said Netanyahu described the rescuer as an Israeli plumber with no flying experience, who pulled the attacker off the controls and levelled the plane.

But Trump kept adding a caveat. He couldn't confirm any of it himself.

Four US citizens, dual nationals, were on board, according to two US officials.

One passenger, Miryam Shira Ohayon, called reporters from Jordanian airspace. She described the plane as close to out of control during what she called a suicide attack attempt.

Passengers were eventually flown on to Tel Aviv on a replacement Flydubai aircraft.

Philip Baum, an aviation security analyst at Green Light Ltd, told Al Jazeera this incident shows the insider threat civil aviation faces. He says it's too early to say if this was terrorism, a personal dispute, or a mental health crisis.

So here's where it stands. The co-pilot's name still isn't confirmed. His motive isn't confirmed. The weapon he used isn't confirmed. Saudi authorities are still questioning him.