Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Fox News that the co-pilot accused of trying to crash a Flydubai jet was an Omani national, PBS NewsHour reported.
The recap: a Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, carrying about 170 people, issued a hijack alert after one pilot reportedly stabbed the other. The plane made an emergency landing at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia, and BBC News reported that Netanyahu said the pilot was arrested.
Developing, unverified: the motive, the radicalization claim and the Iran link. Flydubai has confirmed an altercation on the flight deck but says motives are not yet known. Defence Minister Israel Katz called it an "attempted jihadist terror attack," per the BBC. NBC News reported that Netanyahu said the co-pilot underwent "an Islamist radical indoctrination." President Donald Trump makes the extraordinary, unverified claim of a connection between the co-pilot and Iran, which no independent reporting corroborates.
Trump provided no evidence for the Iran link, PBS NewsHour said.
PBS added that the suspect has not been publicly identified, even as Netanyahu cited his nationality. The UAE said it is investigating possible terrorist activity or prior planning, according to the PBS anchor.
The suspect has now been moved. A Netanyahu spokesman, identified on Fox News only as David, said the prime minister confirmed the co-pilot was transferred to the United Arab Emirates. That lets Israeli investigators join the UAE probe, the spokesman said. He put the passenger count at 170, about 160 of them Israeli.
NBC reported on the captain, Smit Machchhar. He is seen bloodied and speaking on video after opening the cockpit door while being stabbed. India's ambassador to the UAE says he is recovering well, per NBC. NBC also reported that passengers tied up the co-pilot, who allegedly told them to kill him. Israel's president said he is nominating the four Israelis who charged the cockpit for heroism.
Accounts of the rescue differ. A passenger told the BBC that two relief pilots, one of them British, pulled the yoke, stabilized the plane and landed it. NBC and PBS describe passengers subduing the co-pilot after the captain opened the door.
The numbers differ too. The BBC said the plane dropped about 10,000 feet. PBS said 16,000 feet in roughly 60 seconds, and counted 174 passengers and crew. The BBC verified video showing two wounded crew members on the floor with blood around them. It reported no deaths.
PBS also spoke with Juliette Kayyem, a former Department of Homeland Security official now at the Harvard Kennedy School. She said terrorism has to be the leading theory, "not because there is strong evidence" but because of the circumstances. She also named mental health issues as another possibility.
The passengers were later flown on to Ben Gurion Airport on another Flydubai plane. Whether Israeli investigators can show who, if anyone, was behind the co-pilot is now a question for the joint probe in the UAE.