“We Were Sure We Were Going to Crash”: Israelis Recount Terrifying Flydubai Flight

An unusual drama unfolded this morning (Wednesday) on a Flydubai flight traveling from Dubai to Ben-Gurion Airport with 174 passengers on board. During the flight, a distress signal indicating a plane hijacking was transmitted, while the aircraft made a sharp manual descent. Following the incident, the plane was diverted toward Saudi Arabia, and fighter jets from the Israeli Air Force were even scrambled.

During the incident, the plane dropped from an altitude of about 34,000 feet to around 16,000 feet within minutes, creating a risk of crashing. Miriam, who was on the flight, described the terrifying moments: "You cannot understand the magnitude of the incident. It was exactly what it sounds like, like a terrorist attack in the middle of a flight. For close to 10 or 15 minutes, we felt we were not getting out of there alive."

Miriam’s mother said that her daughter called her after the incident and said: "You don’t understand what we went through; our plane almost crashed." According to her, passengers heard screams and a call for help from the cockpit: "Israeli guys pulled themselves together, ran over to him, grabbed the attacker, and tied him to the floor. At that point, the plane was losing its balance, and they were sure they were crashing. She said, ‘We started shouting Shema Yisrael."

The mother, who lost her son on October 7 and is expected to attend his memorial service on Sunday, said this was why Miriam cut her trip short. According to her, Israelis who were on the flight ran to the cockpit, tied up and restrained the person, and with the help of flight trainees who were on the plane, a large group managed to take control of the situation.

According to reports, the pilot is of Russian descent and the co-pilot is of Ukrainian descent. According to another passenger, during the incident, Israeli passengers and crew members tried to take control of the situation and even confronted the pilot. "The entire time, we prayed and said, ‘Shema Yisrael.’ The plane made an emergency landing, and only after we reached the ground did we begin to understand the scale of the incident and what we had gone through."

Noa, another passenger who was on the flight, told News 12: "It was very stressful. We understood that the pilot had been stabbed and the plane simply started plunging. There was panic here, but it’s okay; we landed, and now everything is fine." She added: "Only the Israelis intervened. There are people here with shirts covered in blood."

Ofir, whose mother was on the flight, told the N12 website that the family received no information during the incident. After learning that the plane had landed, he said: "There were some tense minutes, I have to admit."