The co-pilot who allegedly stabbed the captain of a flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv, sending the aircraft into a nosedive, has been transferred to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) along with the captain, Saudi Arabia said Thursday.
Both men left the kingdom for Abu Dhabi after their health conditions improved and medical staff cleared them to travel, the Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement. They were accompanied by an Emirati security team.
The flight operated by Emirates-based carrier flydubai was en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday when violence erupted in the cockpit.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot stabbed the captain and tried to crash the plane, which was carrying 174 passengers, almost all of them Israeli nationals.
The captain, an Indian national, managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to overpower the co-pilot, Netanyahu said. An off-duty flydubai crew took control of the aircraft and made an emergency landing in the Saudi city of Tabuk.
Saudi Arabia said preliminary investigations by its authorities indicated that the co-pilot, an Omani citizen, had assaulted the captain during the flight, with both pilots sustaining injuries.
The UAE government said its own investigation team had begun looking into the attack and "whether it was linked to any terrorist purpose," noting that Emirati authorities have jurisdiction because the plane is registered there and UAE law applies to crimes committed on board.
Someone in the cockpit sent out two four-digit codes to discreetly signal distress while the plane flew erratically near the Jordanian border with Saudi Arabia, according to Flightradar24.com. The first code was "7700," the universal "squawk" signal for an emergency, then "7500," which indicates unlawful interference, including a possible hijacking.
The codes are used by pilots when speaking over the radio may not be possible or wise.
Flydubai said Wednesday that the jet was secured by on-duty crew members "who diverted and landed the aircraft safely." A regional official said the crew members were pilots in training. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
In the chaos that began about two and a half hours after takeoff, the flight descended from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet (around 10,000 meters to 5,100 meters) in about a minute, before making an erratic circle close to the Jordanian border and landing in Tabuk, according to Flightradar24. The site identified the aircraft as a Boeing 737 Max 8.
Flydubai said crew members helped secure the plane but released no details about them.