A hero pᴀssenger on the Israel-bound jet that a co-pilot appeared to try to hijack by stabbing the captain filmed himself begging for help with blood dripping down his head.
“We’re here during the hijacking of an airplane. At this point we’ve subdued the terrorists, we’re approaching landing. Whoever is hearing me, we need help,” the pᴀssenger said in a first-person video posted on X.
The same pᴀssenger was seen in a separate video standing close to two men getting emergency treatment on the ground, with blood smeared across the walls.
🔴 UPDATE
“We’re landing in Tabuk, apparently in Saudi Arabia. An unknown, unfamiliar area.
On the plane, everybody is safe and sound, other than the pilot. We need help,” the man said, a thin stream of blood running from his forehead to his nose.
In another video, one of the pᴀssengers aboard the FlyDubai flight who apparently attempted to subdue the stabber tried to reᴀssure his family he was doing alright after the harrowing incident, which forced an emergency landing.
“We’ve apparently landed in Saudi Arabia. There’s a pilot that’s seriously injured.
They’re taking him to a hospital. There’s another terrorist who … we don’t know his condition, but he was involved somehow. It was rough. It was rough. We’ll be home in a few hours. I need a change of clothes. Everything is drenched in blood,” the pᴀssenger recounted.
“That’s it. I love you. I’ll tell you what happened when we get back,” he added.
“Your dad is a hero. One of the heroes. [I didn’t do it] alone. I’ll see you later. I gotta let my heart rate go down.”
Israeli officials have announced a terrorism investigation, with one confirming “one pilot stabbed the other and tried to do a 9/11,” according to Channel 12.
Another grisly video shows several people tending to two badly bleeding men on the floor in the aircraft’s galley –including one who appears to be wearing a white pilot’s uniform soaked through with blood.
The injured men were wearing oxygen masks, and one was laid out next to a blood-smeared wall, appearing to press his hand to a wound on his abdomen.
“No sleep. You want sleep?” the unseen man filming asked the man, who weakly shook his head no.
The Boeing 737 Max 8 had 174 pᴀssengers on board, including 27 children, the outlet reported.
It departed Dubai for Tel Aviv just before 7 a.m. and was cruising around 34,000 feet before the violence broke out in the cockpit around two-and-a-half hours into the flight, according to Israeli media.
The jet dropped from an altitude of approximately 33,000 feet to around 15,400 feet in just 12 minutes, according to FlightAware data.
Israeli fighter jets were scrambled as a precaution.
The plane made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia — a civilian and military base in the kingdom.
Israeli officials said “a very serious disaster was averted” — raising the specter of the infamous 1976 hijacking of an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris.