Israel just ordered security checks on every pilot flying in
11 hours ago · 1 October 2026Share
A Flydubai Boeing 737 at Dubai International Airport. File photo. N82khan · CC BY-SA 4.0
The pilot stabbed mid-air on a flydubai flight to Tel Aviv has a name now. Smit Machchhar. Indian. Lives in Dubai.
And here's the question investigators are actually asking: how did his co-pilot ever get cleared to fly that route?
First, who is Machchhar. About 13 years flying commercially. Four of them at flydubai. One outlet, i24NEWS, says it's closer to 15 years and over 9,750 flight hours, with time at SpiceJet before flydubai in 2022. The numbers don't quite match. But every source agrees on the shape of it. A long-serving, experienced pilot.
Now the flight. Flydubai Flight FZ1073. Left Dubai a day ago. Around 174 people on board.
Partway through, Israeli officials say the co-pilot stabbed Machchhar in the cockpit.
And here's the part that saved everyone. Hurt as he was, Machchhar opened the cockpit door. That let passengers and crew in. They overpowered the attacker. Two passengers who happened to be qualified pilots helped land the plane. It came down safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
Both men went to hospital. Machchhar has had surgery. He's reported stable.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, called him a true hero who saved 174 lives. Israel Katz, Israel's Defence Minister, called it an attempted jihadist terrorist attack. Saudi authorities have the co-pilot in custody, questioning him now.
So who is he? Israel says he's an Omani national. Al Jazeera says that hasn't been independently verified. And Oman has no diplomatic relations with Israel. None at all.
That one fact is now the whole investigation.
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King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. File photo. liton islam · CC BY 3.0
How does a pilot from a country with no ties to Israel get authorised to fly Dubai to Tel Aviv in the first place? Nobody has answered that yet.
So Israel is changing the rules. For every pilot, not just flydubai's.
Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for Israel's Prime Minister's Office, says quote "we are going to know the pilots' identities, know who they are". Netanyahu has told Israeli authorities to ramp up checks on flights from Israeli and foreign airlines alike.
So a stabbing in one cockpit is now rewriting how Israel screens every pilot who flies there.
Flydubai has suspended all its flights to and from Israel while this plays out. And the airline isn't getting ahead of the facts. Flydubai says the reasons behind the attack are still unknown and under formal investigation, and is urging against premature speculation.
One unnamed fellow pilot has told Israel's Channel 16 that the co-pilot was a religious extremist who had joined flydubai eight months earlier. That's one source. Nobody else has confirmed it.
Nearly 18 hours on, Netanyahu said it's still too early to say if Iran was involved, though he said Israel may join the investigation. Nobody has claimed responsibility. Al Jazeera says there still isn't independent confirmation this was a hijacking attempt at all.
So here's what nobody can answer yet. Not whether the co-pilot did it. Named sources agree on that much. The real question is why. And whether anyone helped him plan it.
Right now, Machchhar is recovering in hospital after opening a door that may have saved 174 people. The man accused of stabbing him is sitting in Saudi custody. And the investigation into how he ever reached that cockpit is only just starting.
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