Passengers of diverted flydubai flight land in ‘Israel’

A plane carrying passengers from an earlier diverted flydubai flight landed at Tel Aviv airport on Wednesday.

The second aircraft, also operated by flydubai, landed on the tarmac of Ben Gurion airport at 1534 GMT, after the passengers' earlier flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia due to an altercation between the pilots.

‘Israeli’ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with the passengers, a spokesman for the PM told AFP.

A video shared by the premier's office showed Netanyahu at Tel Aviv airport meeting a man named Yaniv and his family, describing him as one of the passengers who managed to break into the aircraft's cockpit.

According to Netanyahu and eyewitnesses, one of the pilots of the Tel Aviv-bound flydubai flight had tried to crash the plane and kill those onboard, but was subdued by the passengers.

The aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, where passengers were later collected by another flydubai aircraft and flown to ‘Israel’.

They finally landed at Tel Aviv airport at 6:34 pm (1534 GMT).

"I see a lion, I see a great hero," Netanyahu said after hugging the man, who identified himself to the press as Yuval Hayun.

"Is that from him (the assailant)?" the premier then asked, pointing at bloodstains on the man's white shirt.

"Yes - Unfortunately we did not manage to kill him, but he will take a while to recover," Hayun replied.

Passengers gave a harrowing account of the incident on board, describing a fight for control after the plane suddenly plummeted, losing around 17,000 feet of altitude in the span of a minute, according to the Flightradar24 website.

Flydubai said all the passengers -- of whom 166 out of 174 were ‘Israeli’, according to media reports -- were safe, adding that the reasons for the "altercation" in the cockpit were unknown.