The Lessons of the Flydubai Event

The co-pilot’s attempt to crash a Flydubai plane with 174 Israelis aboard somewhere in Israel was foiled. The pilot, though wounded, managed to unlock the cockpit door, and four Israeli passengers rushed in to subdue the co-pilot. One of the four, a plumber by trade, was able to right the plane because, he later explained, he had learned what to do from television shows. Then one of the two pilots who were among the passengers took over and landed the plane safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. It’s quite a story, and there are many lessons to be drawn from the event. More on those lessons can be found here: “Flydubai saga captures Israel’s role in a new Middle East – and its old limits,” by Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, October 2, 2026:

Wednesday’s flydubai saga crammed the new Middle East into a single aircraft.

An Emirati airline carrying Israelis made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia amid war with Iran – and the incident was immediately drawn into an Israeli election campaign dominated by the question of who can keep the country safe.

Talk about one event bringing everything together.

But beyond the frightening drama aboard the plane, the incident also brought something else into focus: how much the region has changed, and where the limits of that change still lie.

Israelis were flying home on an Emirati airline. When their flight turned into a nightmare, they landed in Saudi Arabia, received medical attention and assistance, and were eventually collected by another Emirati aircraft and brought to Israel.

For all the tensions, wars, and political sensitivities, that sequence is worth noting. The absence of Saudi-Israeli diplomatic relations did not prevent the passengers from receiving help or getting home.

Granted, the Saudis refused to let an Israeli aircraft collect them. That matters and is maddening, especially considering the security and intelligence cooperation that does exist between the two countries. But it need not obscure what they did allow, or turn a story of regional cooperation into a tale primarily about rejection….

But the Israel-UAE relationship will certainly withstand this shock. A relationship that has endured October 7 and wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran rests on interests that one attempted hijacking will not shake. If anything, the incident shows the threats both countries face, why they need each other, and how they can help one another.

The Omani co-pilot, Hammam al-Hammami, a fanatical Muslim intent — as he posted online — on killing Jews, is a brother-in-arms to the terrorists who want to overthrow the regime in the UAE precisely because of that regime’s moderation, its abhorrence of terrorism, its banning of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its eagerness to tighten ties to the Jewish state.

The Saudis have for years benefited from the intelligence that the Israelis supplied to it, though that relationship is kept under wraps so as not to make the Saudi government a target of outraged Muslims who want nothing to do with Israel. That connection, however, does explain the Saudi willingness to have the Flydubai plane full of Israelis land on its territory, and to provide help to those Israeli passengers once they were on Saudi soil.

The UAE has much to answer for. How was an Omani pilot allowed to fly a plane bound for Tel Aviv when the Israeli government had previously made clear to the UAE that only pilots from countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel should fly into Israel. Oman does not have relations with Israel. Was there someone in the UAE vetting the pilots who was disastrously negligent, or was he something far worse — a knowing accomplice in a plot to crash a plane with Israeli passengers? We should soon find out.