An alleged fight between two airline pilots that resulted in one of them being violently attacked and passenger involvement and panic, aboard a Flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv, has become a political and media flashpoint in Israel’s election campaign.

Opposition figures and commentators are accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of exploiting the ordeal, while some social media users go further and claim it was staged.

What was reported

Flight FZ1073 sent an emergency alert shortly after take-off on Wednesday 30 September and made an emergency landing at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia, with the airline saying all passengers were safe. Netanyahu said one pilot stabbed the other and apparently tried to crash the plane. The aircraft plunged thousands of feet in two minutes, and that reserve pilots travelling as passengers helped regain control. The stabbed pilot, Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, is now reported to be in stable condition at an Abu Dhabi hospital.

The suspect is the flight’s Omani co-pilot, who has not been publicly named, and Oman’s government has not commented. He was arrested after the plane landed at Tabuk and questioned by Saudi security services, with UAE officials taking part, according to the Saudi interior ministry.

On Thursday 1 October he was handed over to the UAE, which says it has jurisdiction because the aircraft is registered there. Its attorney general has opened an investigation into whether the incident was linked to terrorist activity and involved any “prior planning or direction”. Netanyahu said the Emirati president agreed that Israel would join the interrogation.

Oman has no diplomatic relations with Israel, and Israeli rules normally bar pilots from such countries from flying there. Netanyahu said the suspect apparently exploited a loophole, and Transport Minister Miri Regev said flydubai violated the aviation agreement between the UAE and Israel by assigning him.

No motive has been established, and Flydubai says the circumstances remain unknown. Netanyahu’s own characterisation has shifted. On the day of the incident, he told CBS: “I don’t think it was a hijacking. It looks like a suicide attempt.” He cited the account of passenger Yaniv Hayun, who said the co-pilot declared that he had failed in his mission and preferred to die.

On Thursday, Netanyahu told Fox News: “We know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination.” He said this appeared to come from the suspect’s personal information, and his office declined to tell AP how he knew. Axios reported that an Israeli intelligence official and people who worked with the co-pilot confirmed he had become religiously radicalised in recent months.

Netanyahu has said it is too early to say whether Iran was involved. US President Donald Trump said that, based on what he was hearing, the answer was yes. A senior Israeli official told Ynet that no Iranian connection had been found so far and that the co-pilot most likely acted alone.

The official added that Israel was examining his social media activity, and that Israel’s assessment was strengthening that the motive was nationalist and religious rather than a suicide attempt unrelated to terrorism.

Ynet also reported that the UAE conveyed angry messages to Israel over what Emirati officials saw as an overly definitive conclusion of terrorism before the investigation was complete.

A row over timing

The critical dispute actually began a day before the flight. Speaking at Tel Nof air base on Tuesday 29 September, Netanyahu said there were “indications that, ahead of the elections, our enemies will try to attack us”.

Opposition figures have accused him of creating alarm without justification, and some claimed he was seeking to undermine the coming election. Security officials told Hebrew media they knew of no specific attack threat.

After being briefed by Netanyahu that night, Lapid accused him of unnecessarily alarming the public and using security issues for election campaigning. Lapid said Israel’s security and IDF bases were “not mere backdrops for election campaign videos”, and he demanded a joint meeting with Netanyahu, the Shin Bet chief and the Central Elections Committee chairman to coordinate ahead of the vote.

Ran Porat of Monash University wrote that opponents initially criticised the warning as a stunt to divert public discourse towards security and away from Netanyahu’s part in the failures of 7 October.

The backdrop was a reported secret trip to Abu Dhabi days earlier, after reports that the UAE president had warned Netanyahu before 7 October that Hamas was preparing for war.

The Associated Press said Netanyahu sought to have him publicly deny it, a report his office dismissed as “fake news”.

Netanyahu told CNN that the reports of pre-7 October warnings are false.

The Times of Israel noted there was no indication that the trip was connected to Tuesday’s warning.

Commentators and media

Several news outlets and commentators in the coverage of the incident framed Netanyahu’s response as politically opportunistic.

Haaretz wrote that he predictably moved to capitalise on the episode. A separate Haaretz analysis said his allies’ claims of foresight raise a harder question: either Israel failed to act on credible intelligence, or an isolated incident is being exploited for political gain. The Times of Israel said he was using incumbency to link himself with the passengers’ heroism, even though he had no direct role in it.

The Irish Times said the Israeli PM wasted no time pivoting to his advantage, and that the feel-good factor could shift some floating voters. An analyst quoted by Al Jazeera said the story could push the approaching 7 October anniversary off the front pages and add impetus to Netanyahu’s push for renewed strikes on Iran.

Ran Porat, writing in The Conversation, noted that Netanyahu quickly posted videos and images of himself with a passenger, a plumber still wearing a blood-stained T-shirt, who helped subdue the attacker.

The Grayzone called the timing unbelievably fortuitous for him.

The New Arab headlined its report as Netanyahu using the incident for electoral gain.

The staging theories online

The claim that the incident was deliberate has circulated mainly on social media.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement’s research centre identified 2,963 posts on X during a 12-hour period attributing the incident to Israel, the Mossad, Netanyahu, Zionists or Jews, the first appearing 67 minutes after the distress signal.

Some posts said Netanyahu had staged the event to cancel the election or distract from criminal charges. Ynet reported that anti-Zionist influencer Jackson Hinkle was among those spreading the theory.

A second watchdog, CyberWell, reported similar false-flag claims, and both groups described them as recycled antisemitic conspiracy narratives rather than responses to the facts. No evidence of staging has been presented, and the investigation is continuing.

Netanyahu’s response

In the reporting reviewed, Netanyahu has not directly addressed either the exploitation charge or the staging claims. Asked by CNN whether his earlier warning was based on intelligence related to the flight, he replied “no, not specifically”, saying he had received information that Iran’s proxies were planning attacks on Israelis but no specific warning about this incident.

His office said Lapid was told in detail on Tuesday of warnings of possible attacks on various fronts before the election, and Likud criticised Lapid for publishing a political attack two minutes after the meeting ended.

Likud suggested his message had been prepared in advance.

Netanyahu has also said Israel will join the interrogation of the suspect so it can establish whether Iran was involved.

Polls suggest he may narrowly lose the election, and the analyst quoted by Al Jazeera doubted he would benefit.

JUST IN: Netanyahu says the attacker aboard the flydubai flight underwent "Islamist radicalization" and intended to crash the plane with everyone on board.

"As time passes, the picture is becoming clearer: Yaniv and his hero friends prevented catastrophe on the scale of 9/11."… pic.twitter.com/qwPJZcInZ4

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