Emirati authorities have not publicly identified a motive
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a FlyDubai flight went into a spin and began to dive during the attack, which he called “an attempt to crash the aircraft,” according to a Wall Street Journal summary published September 30, 2026.
The flight’s crew and passengers then broke into the cockpit, subdued the attacker and stabilized the plane before an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, the Journal reported.
The account appeared in the Journal’s “What’s News” newsletter, which carries brief summaries of multiple headlines each day. The newspaper did not report a date for the attack itself, a flight number, a route, casualty figures or the identity of the attacker in the summary it published.
Emirati authorities, the ultimate owners of FlyDubai who would be involved in any investigation, haven’t so far identified a motive for the attack, the Journal reported. The newspaper did not cite Emirati officials by name or identify any official statement from them.