Passenger on Flydubai flight: 'The pilot was stabbed, we saw blood, we thought we wouldn't make it out alive'

Chilling testimonies continue to arrive from FlyDubai flight FZ1073 that was diverted Wednesday morning for an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, following a serious incident that occurred in the cockpit.

In a phone interview on i24NEWS' sister Hebrew Channel, Miriam, one of the passengers on the plane, together with her mother Yasmin, who was waiting for her at Ben Gurion Airport, described the moments of terror.

"We heard screams, we saw large amounts of blood"

Miriam, who was speaking on the phone while waiting in the airport area in Saudi Arabia, recounted the difficult moments: "About an hour or two before landing, we just started to hear screams from the plane. Someone started screaming... We just heard screams, and they opened the cockpit and saw large amounts of blood, from someone who had simply tried to murder the pilot and stabbed him with a pocketknife. Then the plane lost control."

According to her, the plane completely lost control for several minutes: "We felt that this was it; we were about to crash. I was already screaming 'Shema Yisrael' and saying, 'I can't die, I'm my mother's only daughter, I can't do this to my mom.'"

Miriam says Israeli passengers were the ones who took control of the situation: “Those who ultimately took control of the incident here were Israelis from the plane, who simply neutralized the terrorist. There was also a nurse here, and a doctor who provided first aid to the pilot. And thank God, there were several pilots on the plane, and they sort of took control of the plane, and in the end we made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.”

"We don't know yet if it is a terrorist."

When asked directly whether it was indeed a terrorist who boarded the plane, Miriam replied cautiously: "We don't know yet. There is speculation that it might be someone from the flight crew. We really don't know. At least, I don't know." Regarding how the attacker was subdued, she said: "I believe it was with their own hands; I wasn't in the cockpit."

Miriam also described the situation on the ground after the landing: "Everyone here is traumatized, in a panic. We just landed in Saudi Arabia, they're giving first aid to the pilot who was injured, I don't know what his condition is, but I understand it's not good, and we're waiting to see what they'll do with us here."

Later in the conversation, she updated that police officers and doctors had entered the area and that they asked the passengers to sit down, and that there were rumors about being transferred to an alternative plane for a flight to Israel. "We were all sure that we wouldn't get out of here alive," she said. "I don't know if it would be from a crash, or from a terrorist, or from a murderous attack."

At a later stage in the conversation, Miriam described the severity of the incident: "It's just as it sounds, it's a terrorist attack in the middle of a flight. That's what it was. And those moments, it's more than just moments; it's several whole minutes and even close to ten or fifteen minutes where we felt we wouldn't make it out of there alive."

The mother, who lost her son on October 7, waited at Ben Gurion Airport.

Miriam's mother, Yasmin, arrived at Ben Gurion Airport to wait for her daughter, who was returning from an 11-month trip in the East ahead of her brother's memorial service.

Yasmin described the moments when she received the news: "I got to the airport to wait for my daughter, who had been traveling in the East for 11 months. She was coming ahead of her brother's memorial service. We were all excited, and then I heard from one of the women here that there was a delay with the Dubai flight… Just then, my daughter called. They told me, ‘No, no, she’s landed.’ Then Miriam said to me: ‘Mom, you have no idea what we went through. Our plane almost crashed.’”

Yasmin revealed that she lost her son, Itamar Abuksis, in battle on October 7th: "I lost my son on October 7th. He fell in Kisufim. A sweet Golani soldier... His name was Itamar Abuksis. And we have a memorial service on Sunday, God willing. And that’s the reason Miriam stopped the trip and is coming back. And suddenly I hear something like this, and I say, ‘Oh my God, this can’t be.’ My whole body is covered in goosebumps; even now I’m under internal stress, and I say, oh my God, what a miracle that it ended this way and not otherwise. But what she went through. That’s a terrifying fear."

"We said 'Shema Yisrael'"

Yasmin also described the details of the story as her daughter told her on the phone: "She told me that they heard screams from the cockpit and a call for help, and Israeli guys there pulled themselves together, ran to him, caught the attacker, and tied him up on the floor. At that point, the plane lost its balance, and they were sure they were crashing. She told me, 'We started shouting Shema Yisrael. I asked God to give me strength because I can't not come home.'"

"I am grateful that it ended this way."

Yasmin summed up her feelings: "Now they are waiting in Saudi Arabia. They don't know what will happen. There are ambulances and police forces that arrived at the scene; they asked if anyone needed medical help. First of all, I am grateful that it ended this way, thank God, and not otherwise, that everyone is healthy. I hope that the pilot is as well. And she said there were two other volunteers, pilots, which was also a miracle, that they managed to help and take control."

At the end of the conversation, Yasmin described the therapy dog that is with her, who joined the family after Itamar’s death: “We brought her after Itamar was killed. Her name is Prana. Prana means life energy in Hindi. My son was full of life. Life was taken from him, and from us; a serious vitality. He was the eldest of six siblings, and we must bring in new life energy.”

As previously reported, the incident began when a passenger plane, a Boeing 737 MAX with over 150 passengers on board, made a sharp U-turn while crossing the skies of northern Saudi Arabia. Simultaneously with the activation of a distress signal by the pilot, an unusual deceleration in flight speed was recorded; the aircraft disappeared from civilian tracking systems, and all radio contact with control towers was lost. This chain of events raised serious concerns of a hijacking and led to the scrambling of Israeli Air Force fighter jets.

Ultimately, contact with the cockpit was reestablished, and an initial assessment indicated that the commotion had erupted as a result of a fight that was not nationalist in nature. Israeli airspace returned to normal operations, and the fighter jets were instructed to return to their base.