The text is based on publicly available and verifiable sources, including official ones. However, the investigation is still ongoing and some details may still change. Nevertheless, the overall picture should correspond to what actually happened.
The aircraft, route, and crew
FlyDubai flight 1073 took off from Dubai International Airport (DXB). The route led across the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia to Jordan, and from there to Tel Aviv. The route was operated by a Boeing 737 MAX 8 with registration A6-FKF. According to Flightradar records, the flight usually takes about three hours, and this time too it began completely normally.
The aircraft was commanded by Captain Samir Machar from India, and the first officer was Hammam Al Hammami from Oman. On board were over 170 passengers (some sources say 172 or 174) and four flight attendants, all men. Also traveling with them were two FlyDubai pilots in the role of so-called deadheads, that is, crew members flying as passengers. As it turned out, they subsequently played a key role.
Attack in the cockpit
About two hours into the flight, the aircraft was over northern Saudi Arabia. It was flying at 34,000 feet at a ground speed of around 410 knots. The first officer then told the captain that he was going to pray. In the region, this is a common and respected thing. Instead, however, he struck the captain on the head with an axe, which is part of the cockpit equipment.
ADS-B data on Flightradar shows that until about 5:20 UTC it was a completely calm flight on autopilot: no turns, no climbs or descents. The attack therefore must have occurred around that time. The captain remained injured and most likely briefly lost consciousness. He himself says that he remembers the events only vaguely.
The important thing is that after the attack, the first officer did not immediately begin descending the aircraft. He probably thought he had incapacitated or even killed the captain and wanted to continue the flight. The steep plunge came only later, at the moment when passengers got into the cockpit.
Why is there an axe in the cockpit?
The axe in the cockpit of a transport aircraft is an emergency tool. It does not serve any routine situation. It can also be used as a pry bar. It helps during evacuation when a passage is blocked, and especially during a fire, for example of electrical wiring: it can be used to break open a panel and reach the place that needs to be extinguished.
The axe hangs in the cockpit in a holder and is not locked in any way. It must be accessible. When an emergency landing occurs and you need to get to something, you must have it at hand; you cannot search for it somewhere. It is the same as with a fire extinguisher.
The cockpit as a fortress
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, transport aircraft cockpits were transformed into small fortresses. The doors are reinforced and protected against intrusion. You can get into the cockpit only through a code entered on the keypad in front of the door. The crew inside receives a signal, looks via camera to see who is standing outside, and only then opens.
If the pilots do not respond, for example because they are unwell, the cabin crew can enter an emergency code and the door will open by itself after a certain time. However, a pilot inside can block emergency access. That is exactly what Andreas Lubitz did in 2015 on a Germanwings Airbus. From the inside, however, the door opens manually with an ordinary rotating handle.
A positive chain of events
In aviation accidents, people often speak of a chain of events, which is usually negative: something breaks, someone overlooks something, someone makes a mistake. With flight 1073, it was the opposite. A chain of lucky coincidences saved lives.
Coincidence number one: a mother by the toilet
One of the passengers was accompanying her six-year-old daughter to the toilet just behind the cockpit. From there she heard banging and calls for help and told one of the flight attendants in the forward cabin. There is a lot of noise in an aircraft, so a flight attendant sitting only a few meters from the door might not have heard anything. If the woman with her daughter had not happened to go to the toilet, no one might have noticed the attack.
Coincidence number two: the captain opened the door
At that moment, the injured captain managed to manually open the cockpit door slightly. That began the real fight for the cockpit and for survival. Passengers burst inside, subdued the first officer, dragged him out, and also carried out the captain, whom they began to give first aid.
Fall from 32,000 feet
During the struggle with the passengers, the first officer apparently realized that his plan to hijack the aircraft and commit a terrorist act with it would not succeed. He pushed the aircraft toward the ground. That is the steep plunge the media wrote about from the first hours.
The data are extreme:
- vertical speed exceeded 30,000 feet per minute,
- ground speed reached almost 600 knots,
- in 54 seconds the aircraft descended from 32,375 feet to 16,600 feet, that is, by about 16,000 feet,
- the entire struggle for the aircraft lasted about three and a half minutes.
The danger was not only in hitting the ground. "That aircraft might not even have made it to the ground," warns Boeing 737 pilot Pavel Cekan. When maximum speed is exceeded (overspeed), the fuselage structure can be damaged, and in an extreme case the aircraft can even break apart. "It is evident that the aircraft is designed significantly above the limits to which it is tested. Thanks to that, it stayed together."
Coincidence number three: a passenger who knew Air Crash Investigation
After the attacker was overpowered, the aircraft continued to fall. But in the cockpit was a man who, according to reports, was a plumber but who liked to watch the documentary series about aviation disaster investigations. He knew what to do: he grabbed the yoke (control column) and pulled it toward him.
That too had its risks. Too abrupt an input to the controls at high speed can overload the aircraft so much that the wing tears off. "It has hydraulic boosters, but the forces in the controls did not allow him to pull so firmly that the aircraft would get into such a situation," explains the pilot. "Personally, I think the fuselage will be twisted, but it held. Which is amazing." The aircraft began gradually to recover from the steep dive.
Illuminated emergency signs
The first officer may also have tried to damage the systems in the cockpit. How and to what extent is not yet clear. But in videos from the cabin, Pavel Cekan noticed an important detail: the Emergency Exit signs were lit.
These lights come on automatically, for example, during a loss of electrical power, such as when the engines fail. The pilot can also turn them on manually, but the switch is protected by a cover. According to Cekan, it is unlikely that someone would have flipped it open and turned it on during the scuffle. More likely, someone could have bumped the generator switches and disconnected the aircraft from electricity. Deliberately shutting down both engines is possible, but restarting them would require time, speed, and altitude.
Coincidence number four: a relief crew on board
On such a short flight, a relief crew would not normally be present. But because of the conflict in Iran, aircraft in the region often change routes and slots. If the crew flew three hours to Tel Aviv, waited there several hours, and then flew back, they would exceed the permitted duty time. FlyDubai therefore sends deadheads, who take over the aircraft in Tel Aviv and fly it home.
Paradoxically: if the flight had been shorter, the relief pilots would not have been on board. If it had been longer, the crew would have overnighted at the destination and the return flight would have been taken over by rested pilots who had stayed there overnight from the previous day.
Two professional FlyDubai pilots thus came into the cockpit and took over the controls. "First there is enormous surprise and shock, the so-called startle effect," Cekan describes. "But when you want to save your life, you must act. In a critical situation, a pilot recalls his training and begins to function automatically." The advantage was that they were pilots from the same airline who knew all its standard operating procedures (SOP).
According to unconfirmed information, they were a New Zealander and a South African. They themselves have not publicly commented, which is understandable: pilots are not allowed to speak to the media just like that.
Codes 7500 and 7700 and an extra hour
Without knowing the true extent of the damage, the pilots continued along the route toward Jordan. Over Saudi Arabia they set emergency codes 7500 and 7700 on the transponder.
The secondary radar transponder sends air traffic control data on flight number, altitude, speed, and direction. Normally every flight has its own unique code. But for emergency situations there are three special ones:
- 7500: unlawful interference, that is, hijacking,
- 7600: loss of radio communication with air traffic control,
- 7700: general emergency, for example decompression, fire, control failure, or a medical problem on board. The aircraft receives absolute priority, other traffic is cleared out of the way, and emergency services await it.
Jordan did not allow the aircraft into its airspace. There were also reports that Israeli fighter jets were supposed to have taken off toward it, but whether they actually reached the aircraft is not certain. Over Saudi Arabia they almost certainly were not there. The crew had to turn around and fly for about another hour to Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia.
"As a pilot, you want to land as soon as possible. You do not know what condition the aircraft is in, and you have a seriously injured person on board," Cekan comments. Fuel was also a deciding factor. The crew has fuel for landing, a contingency reserve for unexpected events, a legal reserve for the final 30 minutes, and possibly extra fuel at their own discretion. They apparently had enough for landing in Tabuk.
Torn rudder
Only on the ground did it become clear how seriously the aircraft was damaged: part of the rudder on the vertical tail fin was missing. According to Pavel Cekan, this most likely happened when someone during the scuffle or while pulling the first officer out of his seat stepped on the rudder pedals. At a speed close to the maximum permitted, the structure did not withstand it and part of the rudder broke off.
"They were lucky that the vertical stabilizer remained and only part of the rudder tore off. If the stabilizer had torn off, that aircraft would never make it home," says the pilot. It was also fortunate that no hydraulic system was damaged and no hydraulic fluid leaked. The rudder is used only minimally in flight: to dampen the so-called Dutch roll, to compensate for asymmetric thrust during engine failure, during crosswind landings, and for coordinated turns.
According to passengers, the landing was very smooth. With an aircraft damaged in this way, that is almost unbelievable. Great credit goes to the relief crew, who got the aircraft under control and safely on the ground.
What happened next
The passengers departed for Tel Aviv on a replacement flight. Both the captain and the first officer were transported to the United Arab Emirates. The captain is in stable condition. The injured first officer is also in the hospital and awaits trial. For such an act, he faces up to the death penalty in the UAE.
Questions the incident raised
The most fundamental question is: how is it possible that FlyDubai employed a pilot who, according to available information, left Oman Air after radicalization was proven in his case? Oman Air grounded him and he did not fly for at least a year. Only then did he join FlyDubai. Could the airline have found out this information, or did the pilot lie during the hiring process?
"It does not cast a good light on us pilots. Pilots are normal people who have their problems. If someone becomes radicalized, it is a question of a systemic solution," says Pavel Cekan. "You fly with a colleague and assume that you are on the same wavelength, that you want to return home safely to your family."
FlyDubai will have to work hard to convince the public that this was an isolated case and not a systemic problem. Otherwise it risks losing passengers' trust.
Moreover, the incident fits into a disturbing series. Since 2014, this is already the fourth case in which a pilot took control of the cockpit and could not be stopped:
- 2014: the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which has still not been found,
- 2015: Andreas Lubitz deliberately flew a Germanwings Airbus into the French Alps,
- 2022: the crash of China Eastern flight 5735 in China, where China still conceals information about the pilot's role,
- 2026: FlyDubai 1073, which only by a miracle did not end in tragedy in the Saudi desert or in a terrorist attack on Israeli territory.
The threat from passengers after September 11, 2001, was solved by impenetrable cockpit doors. But how to deal with a situation where the attacker is already sitting in the cockpit and no one can get to him? Aircraft manufacturers will also have to answer this question in the coming years.