Israel to 'ramp up' aviation security after pilot 'tries to crash plane'

Israel's Prime Minister says a commercial flight with 174 people on board bound for Tel Aviv had to divert to Saudi Arabia after one pilot stabbed the other and "apparently tried to crash the plane". 

Warning: This article contains graphic images. 

The Boeing 737 operated by flydubai — a sister airline of Emirates — took off from Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday morning, local time.

Tabuk Airport, in north-west Saudi Arabia, said its air-traffic control received a distress call from the flight FZ1073 at 8:44am (3:44pm AEST). It landed there safely around an hour later.

In a video address released by his office on Wednesday, Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu made several startling claims about what he described as a "highly severe security incident". He said:

• One pilot had stabbed the other and attempted to crash the plane.
• The flight entered a "tailspin", which prompted passengers to break into the cockpit with a member of the crew.
• Once inside, the group found a co-pilot "trying to sabotage the plane's systems".
• The plane only landed safely because a second crew on board took control.

Almost all the passengers on the flight were Israeli, Mr Netanyahu said, before praising the group that intervened at the front of the plane.

"They saved many lives," he said. "They prevented a heavy disaster."

Authorities would "ramp up" flight security on Israeli and non-Israeli carriers, Mr Netanyahu's spokesman later added. 

According to the website Flightradar24, the flydubai plane plunged about 4,000 metres in less than 30 seconds at one point during its journey.

Some of the details from Mr Netanyahu's video were corroborated by a flydubai spokesperson, who said an "altercation had occurred" on the flightdeck of FZ1073.

"At this early stage, the underlying reasons and motives behind this event are unknown and remain subject to a formal investigation," they said.

"We urge all parties to refrain from premature speculation while authorities gather the facts."

'We jumped and helped the pilot'

Verified images from inside the flight showed men covered in blood.

One of the passengers on board, Itzhak Liber, posted a video to social media shortly before the plane landed, in which he said: "We are here on the plane, there was a crazy man with a knife who stabbed one of the pilots.

"We jumped and helped the pilot. Friends, everything is OK now, as you can see we are landing in Saudi Arabia, you can see I am fine. That's it. We will see in a few minutes what will happen when we land."

Citing local security sources, Israeli media outlets and Reuters said the incident was being treated as a terror attack.

Israel Katz, the country's defence minister, on Wednesday described the incident as "a jihadist terror attempt" which was "thwarted only thanks to the bravery of several Israeli passengers who broke into the cockpit, overpowered the terrorist and with their own hands returned control of the plane to an additional flight crew that was present there".

Transporting the passengers from Tabuk to Tel Aviv has been complicated by the fact Saudi Arabia and Israel do not have formal diplomatic relations.

An Israeli request to send a plane to pick up the passengers was rejected. Flydubai said it had sent two planes to Tabuk later on Wednesday to pick up the stranded people.

Shortly after 6pm local time (1am Thursday AEAST), Saudi authorities confirmed the stranded people were on their way to their final destination.