Israel told the world Wednesday that a flydubai pilot stabbed his colleague and tried to fly a jet full of Israelis into the ground. By Wednesday night Israeli officials had added the second half: he acted alone. Israel "has no current indication" the attacker was directed by Iran or any organized group, Channel 12 reported, quoting officials who now call him a lone wolf.
Between those two statements sits a story only Israel has told.
Flight FZ1073 left Dubai for Tel Aviv at 7:05 a.m. with about 170 passengers, almost all Israeli. Two hours in, the jet fell out of cruise. Flightradar24 recorded a fall of more than 14,000 feet in under two minutes. Someone in the cockpit keyed 7700, the general emergency code, then 7500, the code for a hijacking. Nobody has said who. Israel scrambled fighter jets. Other flydubai pilots on board took the controls, turned the jet back over Jordan and landed it at Tabuk, in northwest Saudi Arabia, at 9:45 a.m.
Passengers say they heard screams and saw blood before Israelis and off-duty crew forced the cockpit door. One passenger told Netanyahu he found "the terrorist on the controls, between the two seats," with nobody in either seat.
Netanyahu spoke in the afternoon. One pilot "stabbed the other pilot," he said, and apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board. The Saudis, he said, arrested the suspect and are questioning him. The airline, the Saudis and the Emiratis have said a paragraph between them since, and none of it matches his account.
