Australian couple safe after flydubai flight diverts to Saudi Arabia following cockpit incident

Two Australians aboard a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv are safe after the plane diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, following a cockpit incident on Wednesday, 30 September. Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed their safety on Thursday, while flydubai said the cause of an altercation on the flight deck remains under formal investigation.

The Israeli embassy in Australia told the Guardian the passengers were a Jewish couple from Sydney, without providing further details. Wong said she was relieved that at least two Australians on the flight were safe and expressed concern for those injured. The reports do not establish where the couple went after the diversion or whether they travelled onward together with other passengers.

NewsJaws previously reported that an Australian couple was among the passengers on the diverted flight. The subsequent confirmation from Wong establishes that at least two Australians were safe; it does not answer every question about their journey.

What happened on flydubai flight FZ1073

ABC News reported that flight FZ1073, a Boeing 737 carrying 174 people, departed Dubai on Wednesday morning local time. Tabuk Airport said air traffic control received a distress call at 8:44am local time. The aircraft landed safely there about an hour later, according to ABC’s account. The diversion took a service bound for Israel into north-western Saudi Arabia.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said one pilot stabbed the other and apparently tried to crash the aircraft, ABC reported. The Guardian said Israeli officials identified the accused pilot as an Omani citizen. These are attributed accounts of an alleged assault; the published reports do not present them as conclusions of flydubai’s investigation.

Netanyahu also said passengers and a crew member entered the cockpit and intervened. Passenger Yaniv Hayoun described helping to restrain the alleged attacker, according to ABC and the Guardian. The Guardian reported his account that the attacker had been trying to damage the aircraft’s instruments. Those details come from the people involved and officials recounting the emergency.

What is known about the passengers’ onward journey

ABC reported that passengers from the diverted flight later reached Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. Flydubai said it sent two planes to Tabuk to collect stranded passengers. Neither report establishes whether the two Australians were among those who arrived in Tel Aviv, and the Israeli embassy gave the Guardian no further details about them.

The injured pilot was identified by Netanyahu as Captain Smit Machchhar, ABC reported. The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia said he was in stable condition. Wong said she hoped those injured would make a full recovery. The available reports do not give a fuller medical account of the injuries sustained aboard the flight.

ABC reported that Netanyahu said Saudi officials had arrested one of the pilots. That assertion is attributed to the prime minister; the report did not provide an independent confirmation of an arrest. The immediate known outcome is that the aircraft landed safely and passengers were subsequently flown on from Tabuk.

Why the cause of the cockpit incident remains open

Israeli authorities were treating the incident as a terror attack, according to ABC, and Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described it as a jihadist attempt. The airline’s statement was narrower: it confirmed an altercation and said the reasons and motives were unknown. The Guardian reported Netanyahu saying it was too early to tell who was ultimately behind the incident.

Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, told the Guardian that heightened security alerts had been issued. He linked the incident to hostility toward Israel and the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in 2020. That interpretation is his; neither flydubai’s statement nor the other reported accounts establish a motive.