The Boeing 737 MAX 8 was diverted to Tabuk in north-western Saudi Arabia, where Machchhar and his co-pilot were taken to hospital. His condition was not immediately known.
The pilot stabbed during Wednesday’s incident on flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv is Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, people aware of the matter said.
Tabuk Airport said it received a distress call from the flight at 8.44am local time, and the aircraft touched down about an hour later. Flight-tracking data show that the aircraft fell about 14,300 feet in 37 seconds and later transmitted the transponder code for unlawful interference.
Flydubai has described the event only as “an incident while en route”, and authorities have not said what happened on board. After the incident, the airline said that the aircraft was successfully secured by on-duty flydubai crew travelling on the flight, who diverted and landed the aircraft safely at Tabuk Airport. “This incident has no impact on other scheduled operations across the flydubai network,” the airlines spokesperson said.
They added that at this early stage, the underlying reasons and motives behind this event are unknown and remain subject to a formal investigation.
