A Flydubai service bound for Tel Aviv was forced into an emergency diversion after its co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain inside the cockpit with an axe — an episode one report described as a “terrorist act.”¹

The confrontation appears to have begun while the aircraft was en route to Tel Aviv. Details remain limited in the available reports, but the central account is consistent: the alleged attacker was the co-pilot, the target was the captain, and the violence took place where control of the aircraft could be compromised in seconds.¹

The danger then moved from the cockpit into the flight path. A separate report says the plane dropped 18,000 feet in 90 seconds, portraying the descent as a near-catastrophe rather than a routine diversion.² That account underscores the scale of the emergency: a cockpit struggle was not merely a security incident; it coincided with a violent loss of altitude that put everyone aboard at risk.

The outcome, however, was not the catastrophe suggested by the plunge. Reporting credited an Indian Flydubai pilot with helping avert disaster, indicating that the remaining crew regained sufficient control to stabilise the aircraft and divert it safely.³

Taken together, the reports tell two sides of the same 90-second crisis. One frames the attack through its alleged motive and criminal gravity; another focuses on the aircraft’s abrupt descent; the third centres the response that prevented the emergency from becoming a mass-casualty event. What remains clear is that the flight’s survival turned on control being restored after an alleged attack in the cockpit.