Were Flydubai pilots who caused emergency landing Russian, Ukrainian? We investigated

On Sept. 30, 2026, a claim (archived) circulated online that a fight between Russian and Ukrainian pilots forced a Flydubai plane to carry out an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

The claim spread as Flydubai, an Emirati airline, said in a statement that “an altercation” occurred on the flight deck of Flight FZ 1073, traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Sept. 30. An on-duty crew member managed to “secure” the flight, the statement said, which landed in Saudi Arabia with all passengers and crew accounted for.

According to Cluster2 (archived), the company that owns the airport where the Flydubai plane landed, the captain and first officer sustained injuries and were taken to a hospital in Saudi Arabia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement (archived) on Sept. 30 that one pilot had stabbed another.

One X user who shared the claim about the pilots’ nationalities in Arabic wrote:

The Emirates plane landed at Tabuk Airport after an emergency was declared on board.

Cause of the incident: A fight between the pilot and his co-pilot escalated to punching and stabbing.

The pilot was Russian, and his co-pilot was Ukrainian.

The claim also spread elsewhere on X (archived, archived).

According to Ukrainian media, Israeli media initially reported that the pilots on the Flydubai plane were Russian and Ukrainian. 

Later reporting by Reuters and Israeli media did not repeat this claim but rather said that anonymous Israeli officials said the pilot who allegedly stabbed another was from Oman.

The Embassy of India in Saudi Arabia said (archived) on X on Sept. 30 that the pilot who was the victim of the midair stabbing was Indian. Therefore, given that there were two pilots on board the plane, it was not possible for them to be Russian and Ukrainian, rendering such claims false. 

The embassy also wrote that the pilot, who it named as Smit Machchhar, had been hospitalized following the incident on board flight FZ 1073 but was in stable condition. 

At the time of this writing, Flydubai had not confirmed the identity or nationality of the pilots on the flight, or exactly what happened in the cockpit. The airline said in a statement:

At this early stage, the underlying reasons and motives behind this event are unknown and remain subject to a formal investigation. We urge all parties to refrain from premature speculation while authorities gather the facts.

We contacted the ministries of foreign affairs for Russia, Ukraine and Oman to ask them to confirm whether either of the FZ 1073 pilots held any of those nationalities. We also contacted the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office to confirm the statement attributed to Israeli officials that the pilot who allegedly stabbed the other was Omani. We await replies to our queries.

What we know about ‘altercation’ on Flydubai plane

While Flydubai and Cluster2’s statements were vague about what exactly led to the injury of one of Flight FZ 1073’s pilots, Netanyahu gave a more detailed explanation in a Sept. 30 video statement, saying: 

This morning, a very serious security incident occurred on a flight from Dubai to Israel. Almost all the passengers on the flight were Israelis. During the flight, as they were approaching Israel, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot, and it appears he tried to crash the plane with everyone on board. 

I spoke with one of the Israeli passengers. He told me that the plane went into a spin and began to nosedive. He told me that somehow, he managed to break into the cockpit with one of the crew members, and together they subdued the attacking pilot as he was trying to sabotage the plane’s systems. Another flight crew member who was on the plane entered the cockpit and managed to stabilize the aircraft.

Netanyahu added that the suspected assailant was arrested and was “being questioned by the Saudi authorities.” The statement did not contain any confirmation of the pilots’ nationalities.

Tracking data for Flight FZ 1037 supported Netanyahu’s statement that the plane had dipped suddenly while in midair. An altitude graph from Flightradar24 showed the plane had been cruising at 34,000 feet when it dropped to around 17,000 feet within minutes around 2.5 hours after departure. The flight briefly climbed back to around 21,000 feet before reducing altitude to around 15,000 feet and landing at Tabuk Regional Airport at around 7 a.m. UTC, four hours after it took off from Dubai.

FlightRadar24 reported that FZ 1037 had squawked code 7700, which indicates a general emergency, at 5:28 a.m., shortly after it experienced the sudden dip in altitude. It then squawked 7500, indicating unlawful interference, around seven minutes later. The plane switched back to squawking 7700 as it approached Tabuk Regional Airport.

Cluster2 said (archived) all passengers on FZ 1037 had left Tabuk Regional Airport by the afternoon of Sept. 30. Flydubai said in a statement that it had suspended flights to and from Israel while the Sept. 30 incident was under investigation.

Deepl.com provided translation from Hebrew into English.

Sources