Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thanked an Indian pilot, who was stabbed by a co-pilot, for saving 174 people on board the Flydubai Dubai-Tel Aviv flight that made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. He said that despite being stabbed and seriously injured, Machchhar “fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker – preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster”. The co-pilot of the flight, who is accused of stabbing Machchhar in an alleged attempt to take control of the aircraft, remains unidentified, but Netanyahu said he was arrested after the plane landed in Saudi Arabia.
Flydubai flight FZ1073 transmitted an emergency alert shortly after takeoff from Dubai on Wednesday morning, making an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk airport with all passengers safe and accounted for, according to the airline. Flight-tracking data from the Flightradar24 website indicated the flight was a Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft. A rescue flight – operated by Flydubai – flew all passengers from Tabuk to their final destination, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport at .
They were received at the airport by Netanyahu, in a display the Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called “cheap politics”, in the run-up to this month’s elections.
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