United Arab Emirates prosecutors said Saturday that a flydubai co-pilot attacked the captain with a cockpit crash axe and tried to seize the controls of an Israel-bound passenger jet, describing the episode as an attempted terrorist act while cautioning that the motive and possible links remain under investigation.

The new account is the first formal Emirati finding that the violence aboard Flight FZ1073 was planned as terrorism. The statement from UAE Attorney-General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said investigators are still examining the circumstances, motives, physical and digital evidence, and any connections to other people or organizations. That distinction matters: authorities have characterized the act, but they have not released a final investigative report or publicly established whether the co-pilot acted alone.

The flight left Dubai for Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Sept. 30, before the emergency unfolded over the region. The aircraft diverted to Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia and landed safely after other flydubai pilots and crew members aboard intervened. The airline’s running official update says all 172 passengers and crew survived, the captain returned to the UAE after receiving medical clearance, and flights to and from Israel have been suspended while the investigation continues.

What investigators say happened

The prosecutor’s statement says the co-pilot used an emergency axe inside the flight deck, assaulted the captain and attempted to take control of the aircraft. It does not describe the precise sequence of the struggle, how the cockpit was secured or what evidence led authorities to classify the conduct as terrorism. The UAE General Civil Aviation Authority had initially said only that a security incident caused crew injuries and forced the diversion, according to its Sept. 30 notice.

Independent reporting fills in parts of the timeline but also underscores what remains unverified. Reuters reported that a reserve flydubai pilot took control and landed the aircraft, and that Saudi authorities detained the co-pilot before he was transferred to Abu Dhabi. Reuters and the Associated Press have identified the suspect through unnamed sources as an Omani national. Emirati authorities and flydubai had not publicly confirmed his identity in their statements as of Saturday morning.

The Associated Press reported that investigators are trying to determine whether the co-pilot acted alone. AP also cited an unnamed source who said Oman had previously barred him from flying over extremist concerns. That assertion has not been confirmed in the released UAE findings, and Oman has not publicly addressed the allegation. It should therefore be treated as a reported investigative lead, not an established conclusion.

Flight data show an extraordinary emergency

Publicly available aircraft data are consistent with a severe disruption in the cockpit, though they cannot reveal intent. Flightradar24’s reconstruction says the jet began a steep descent from cruise altitude and later transmitted the internationally recognized transponder codes for a general emergency and unlawful interference before turning toward Tabuk. The service cautions more broadly that its track is assembled from ADS-B and other surveillance data; those signals document the aircraft’s movement, not what occurred inside it.

The most consequential confirmed facts are narrower than some early accounts: an axe assault occurred in the flight deck, the captain was injured, the co-pilot attempted to take the controls, and the aircraft landed safely after others intervened. The official finding that the act was terrorist in nature raises the stakes for aviation security, but it does not yet answer whether ideology, outside direction, personal grievance or another factor drove the attack.

Questions now turn to vetting and cockpit safeguards

The case will put scrutiny on employee screening, the sharing of security concerns across national aviation systems and the controls surrounding emergency tools stored in a cockpit. It may also test how airlines balance the need for pilots to access safety equipment with the risk posed by an insider who already has legitimate flight-deck access.

Those policy questions should not be confused with findings that have not been made. Neither the UAE prosecutor nor flydubai has said that the airline ignored a known warning, that another person directed the attack or that a specific organization was involved. The airline says it is supporting the official inquiry and has urged against speculation.

For passengers, the immediate operational consequence is the suspension of flydubai’s Israel service. For regulators, the incident is a rare demonstration that a security threat can originate inside the cockpit rather than from someone attempting to breach it. The safe landing prevented mass casualties, but the investigation’s final account will determine whether the response remains an isolated criminal case or produces broader changes in pilot vetting, information sharing and flight-deck procedures.

The UAE has promised to release final results after technical examinations and evidence reviews are complete. Until then, the public record supports a grave but bounded conclusion: prosecutors believe the co-pilot deliberately tried to seize an airliner after attacking its captain, while the motive, network and institutional failures—if any—remain unresolved.