CALGARY — According to the Israeli government, a flight from United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Israel was diverted to Saudi Arabia due to an attempted "hijacking" and "terror attack" by one of the pilots on the flight.As reported by the Globe and Mail, two Israeli officials said the co-pilot is believed to have stabbed the captain before cabin crew entered the cockpit and took control of the plane.Close to the time the plane landed in Saudi Arabia, a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister's office told Reuters the incident was not believed to be a hijacking but a "different incident."Later, two officials speaking anonymously to two reporters stated the incident was an attempted "terror attack" and was not related to any mental health issues that either pilot could have had..In one of multiple clips filmed on the flight and circulated by Israeli media, a passenger said one of the pilots was seriously injured and the other was slightly injured, after one of the pilots was stabbed.After the plane, Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, safely landed in Saudi Arabia's Tabuk airport, the airport disclosed that the two pilots had been hospitalized after sustaining injuries.Neither the airport nor the Israeli passenger identified the attacker. The diverted flight flew over Jordanian airspace, transmitting a general emergency signal and then another emergency signal that was meant to indicate potentially unlawful interference, according to the flight-tracking website Flightradar24..The Boeing 737 plane had 150 Israeli passengers on board.The aircraft's data appeared to show it had suddenly and rapidly descended by nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds before the first emergency signal.Israeli media have also published multiple conflicting reports about the incident, with some outlets reporting a pilot tried to crash the passenger plane in an alleged suicide attempt, while other outlets have identifying the pilots as Omani and Emirati nationals, while others said they were Russian and Ukrainian.The incident has led to a national security consultation in Israel..In a statement, Israeli prime minister’s office said the incident was "under control" and measures were being taken to bring the Israeli passengers back to Israel.Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier held security consultations on the incident, and cleared his schedule for the rest of the day to manage the crisis.The UAE has yet to comment on the incident, while the Dubai-owned airline has only stated the flight experienced an "incident" and diverted to Tabuk, where it landed safely and all passengers were accounted for.Yasmin Abukasis says her daughter Miriam was among the passengers on the flight. She told her mother she had heard screaming and that a man holding a knife had forced one of the pilots onto the floor and there was blood everywhere..The pilot who stabbed the other pilot on the plane was trying to crash the plane in an attempted hijacking, according to a statement by Netanyahu. According to Netanyahu, passengers and crew subdued the assailant, who has been arrested. "They saved many lives. They prevented a heavy disaster," stated Netanyahu.Another passenger, Mika Bauman, described chaos aboard the flight, with children crying and passengers screaming, CNN reported. .“I was just sure I was going to die,” stated Bauman, comparing the feeling of the plane losing altitude to the drop of a roller coaster."It was that times a million.""You’re just sitting there and accepting your fate," she added.Bauman described a scene of people going down the aisle with bloodstained clothes, while at first she just believed there was something wrong with the plane.“Someone kept coming up and updating us and then they told us there’s a terrorist on board,” she stated.She recalled she didn't understand the extent of the attack until they had landed in Saudi Arabia..Bauman also noted later she thanked the hero passengers who subdued the attackers, saying they were easy to recognize because of the blood on their clothes.“They just said that they knew their family was on that plane and if they didn’t rush in then we wouldn’t be here right now, so they really saved our lives.”The hero passenger, Yaniv Hayoun, recounted to Netanyahu, after meeting with him on Wednesday, that he and other passengers stopped the alleged attacker, saying he put him in a chokehold and dragged him out of the cockpit before returning and grabbing the plane's controls.He recalled it was difficult to first enter the cockpit because the stabbed pilot was up against the door, making it hard to open at first. .When he finally did get access to the cockpit, he saw the attacker on the panel between the two seats. “There were no pilots in the seats: one was on the floor, one was on the [panel],” Hayoun stated adding the attacker appeared to be trying to "disable the plane."He recounted it all as having occurred within seconds. "I imagine that if we had entered Israeli airspace, it wouldn’t have ended well," he added..As for how he knew to pull back the handles to help bring the plane under control, he credited a television series."I watch Air Crash Investigation, Mr. Prime Minister — really!"A spokesperson for Flydubai, the airline of the diverted flight, says the aircraft was "successfully secured by on-duty Flydubai crew travelling on the flight, who diverted and landed the aircraft safely at Tabuk Airport.”Though the details surrounding who exactly landed the plane are unclear..One passenger, Almog Itali, said two "relief pilots" were on the flight, as they were meant to be operating a subsequent flight, according to an interview aired on the BBC.
