Despite the resignation of B.C.’s Conservative leader, and the appointment of an interim one, British Columbians find themselves in the middle of a snap election.

NDP leader David Eby, hoping to capitalize on an opposition in turmoil, is sending B.C. voters to the polls one week after a province-wide municipal election.

Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer joins host Dave Breakenridge to talk about the fallout from Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s resignation, how the election call may have bolstered the Conservatives’ prospects, and how the municipal vote has become an issue in the provincial race.

Background reading:Vaughn Palmer: First few days of B.C. campaign a disaster for David Eby

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The suspect accused of attempting to hijack a Flydubai flight to Israel talked about “killing Jews” on social media, “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” and “refused to shake hands with women,” according to multiple reports.

The suspect, an Omani national, was the co-pilot on board the plane, flying from the United Arab Emirates to Israel, when he allegedly stabbed the pilot. He “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The suspect, who has not been identified, also talked about “killing Jews” on social media, an Israeli official told the Times of Israel. He was “radicalized into jihadist ideology,” the official said.

According to Israeli media outlet Channel 16, a colleague of the suspect said he would not shake hands with women, the New York Post reported . He displayed “strange behaviour, especially around religious observances that were out of step with his surroundings,” the colleague said.

He had reportedly worked at the airline for eight months, according to CNN .

The incident, which has been labelled as a thwarted terror attack by Israeli officials, occurred on the flight departing from Dubai in the UAE. It was expected to land in Tel Aviv on Sept. 30. However, as the plane neared Israel, a struggle ensued, causing the aircraft to descend suddenly — dropping 17,400 feet (5,300 metres) in just under two minutes, CNN reported.

Following the attack, the hero pilot, identified as Indian national Captain Smit Machchhar, was seriously injured, he was able to open the cockpit door. “He was stabbed in the head and his arm was basically split in two. There was a lot of blood,” said Netanyahu.

Passengers and crew members scrambled to subdue the suspect. The plane landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Machchhar is recovering in Tabuk and is in stable condition, according to the Indian Embassy in Riyadh .

Netanyahu revealed more details about the suspect while speaking on the Fox News show Fox & Friends. He said that the Omani national had been radicalized. It was too early to say whether he had ties to Iran or anywhere else, Netanyahu said.

After attacking Machchhar, the suspect was attempting to “jam the instruments” in the cockpit, Netanyahu said. While he was restrained, he yelled at the air crew, “Kill me. Kill me.”

“It is clear he was suicidal. That’s not a question,” said the prime minister.

The suspect is currently being interrogated and is expected to be moved to the UAE, although Israel will be part of the investigation.

Netanyahu said that there are constraints for pilots that come from countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel. “He was able to get through that. There was a loophole there,” he said.

The suspect’s colleague reportedly told Channel 16 that the airline “hired the services of a terrorist and nearly caused the deaths of 180 people.” They added: “Usually only Emiratis fly to Israel. It is not clear how he got on this flight.”

When asked how he believed the suspect was able to get onto the plane with a weapon, Netanyahu said there were two possibilities. “He didn’t go through a metal detector,” he said, and may have been carrying a knife or an axe. Or, he said, he could have used an axe that may have been part of the airplane’s standard equipment.

Netanyahu said he believed the suspect wanted to “down” the plane with all 174 passengers inside.

“We can’t say for sure until the investigation’s over but it certainly seems like he was a suicide actor who was probably going to try to down that plane,” an Israeli official told the Times of Israel.

Netanyahu also commended the teamwork of the passengers who rushed to action to help the pilot and to subdue the attacker.

“We could be sitting today in a 9/11 tragedy with bodies scattered in the desert,” he said. It was avoided because of the “courage of these people.”

“They tell the world that you can fight terrorism,” he added.

• ‘I grabbed the attacker’: Passenger describes how he helped subdue co-pilot suspected of trying to crash plane
• Ottawa is sending another $100 million to Palestinians without knowing where the money will be spent

The suspect accused of attempting to hijack a Flydubai flight to Israel talked about “killing Jews” on social media, “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” and “refused to shake hands with women,” according to multiple reports.

The suspect, an Omani national, was the co-pilot on board the plane, flying from the United Arab Emirates to Israel, when he allegedly stabbed the pilot. He “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The suspect, who has not been identified, also talked about “killing Jews” on social media, an Israeli official told the Times of Israel. He was “radicalized into jihadist ideology,” the official said.

According to Israeli media outlet Channel 16, a colleague of the suspect said he would not shake hands with women, the New York Post reported . He displayed “strange behaviour, especially around religious observances that were out of step with his surroundings,” the colleague said.

He had reportedly worked at the airline for eight months, according to CNN .

The incident, which has been labelled as a thwarted terror attack by Israeli officials, occurred on the flight departing from Dubai in the UAE. It was expected to land in Tel Aviv on Sept. 30. However, as the plane neared Israel, a struggle ensued, causing the aircraft to descend suddenly — dropping 17,400 feet (5,300 metres) in just under two minutes, CNN reported.

Following the attack, the hero pilot, identified as Indian national Captain Smit Machchhar, was seriously injured, he was able to open the cockpit door. “He was stabbed in the head and his arm was basically split in two. There was a lot of blood,” said Netanyahu.

Passengers and crew members scrambled to subdue the suspect. The plane landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Machchhar is recovering in Tabuk and is in stable condition, according to the Indian Embassy in Riyadh .

Netanyahu revealed more details about the suspect while speaking on the Fox News show Fox & Friends. He said that the Omani national had been radicalized. It was too early to say whether he had ties to Iran or anywhere else, Netanyahu said.

After attacking Machchhar, the suspect was attempting to “jam the instruments” in the cockpit, Netanyahu said. While he was restrained, he yelled at the air crew, “Kill me. Kill me.”

“It is clear he was suicidal. That’s not a question,” said the prime minister.

The suspect is currently being interrogated and is expected to be moved to the UAE, although Israel will be part of the investigation.

Netanyahu said that there are constraints for pilots that come from countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel. “He was able to get through that. There was a loophole there,” he said.

The suspect’s colleague reportedly told Channel 16 that the airline “hired the services of a terrorist and nearly caused the deaths of 180 people.” They added: “Usually only Emiratis fly to Israel. It is not clear how he got on this flight.”

When asked how he believed the suspect was able to get onto the plane with a weapon, Netanyahu said there were two possibilities. “He didn’t go through a metal detector,” he said, and may have been carrying a knife or an axe. Or, he said, he could have used an axe that may have been part of the airplane’s standard equipment.

Netanyahu said he believed the suspect wanted to “down” the plane with all 174 passengers inside.

“We can’t say for sure until the investigation’s over but it certainly seems like he was a suicide actor who was probably going to try to down that plane,” an Israeli official told the Times of Israel.

Netanyahu also commended the teamwork of the passengers who rushed to action to help the pilot and to subdue the attacker.

“We could be sitting today in a 9/11 tragedy with bodies scattered in the desert,” he said. It was avoided because of the “courage of these people.”

“They tell the world that you can fight terrorism,” he added.

• ‘I grabbed the attacker’: Passenger describes how he helped subdue co-pilot suspected of trying to crash plane
• Ottawa is sending another $100 million to Palestinians without knowing where the money will be spent

OTTAWA — A new report by Ottawa’s fiscal watchdog warns that the planned high-speed rail project from Toronto to Quebec city could cost as much as 25 per cent more than the Carney government’s highest estimates.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) estimated in a report released Thursday that the project’s costs would run between $75-billion and $113-billion, compared to the government’s estimated range of $60 billion to $90 billion. The upper end of the PBO’s estimated range is 25.6 per cent higher than the government’s.

“This range reflects the considerable uncertainty inherent in large-scale rail infrastructure projects,” the report said.

The report raises fresh questions about one of the Liberal government’s signature projects, as Prime Minister Mark Carney tries to balance his desire to bolster Canada’s infrastructure and the country’s growing debt.

The high-speed rail project would add about 1,000 kilometres of electrified high-speed rail using trains designed to travel up to 300 kilometres per hour. The project was unveiled by former prime minister Justin Trudeau in February 2025, just weeks before he left office. It was referred to Carney’s new Major Projects Office in September 2025. Construction is expected to begin in 2029 and the vast majority of the bill will be paid by the federal government, although there may be private sector involvement.

But the project’s rising cost estimates may not be finished. PBO Annette Ryan also warned that any major changes to the rail plan, such as diverting the line to run through Kingston, Ont. or adding tunnels or overpasses would add significantly to the project’s cost.

The PBO’s analysis concluded that about 15 kilometres of tunnel would be needed to connect Laval, Que. and Montreal. And the government announced in June that Kingston is being considered for a potential stop.

The PBO report, based largely on previous high-speed rail projects in Europe and the United States, notes that the details of the proposed route have not yet been made public, and that much of the route will need to go through costly, rocky Canadian Shield. Dense, urban areas, such as the Montreal area, are also more difficult and costly for a rail project.

The report also tamps down the economic benefits of constructing the high-speed rail project, saying Canadians should expect only a “modest” near-term economic stimulus. For this part of the analysis, the report focuses on the Ottawa-Montreal leg of the proposed project because it’s expected to be completed first. Each dollar spent on construction would boost gross domestic product, or the size of the economy, by about 80 cents during the first year of construction, growing to about 90 cents by the fifth year.

Construction would mean about 4,300 new jobs during the first year, rising to about 9,000 by the fifth.

The analysis does not factor in the costs of financing the project through higher taxes, reduced spending on other things and higher deficits, nor does it try to account for any possible productivity gains from the new line or the added costs of potentially displacing the advance of other construction projects.

The project was mandated to crown corporation Alto in partnership with Cadence, a consortium chosen to design, build and operate the rail line. Alto has completed its first major round of consultations with Indigenous communities and the broader public.

National Post

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The Russian founder of Russia’s largest private cargo airline group stepped up his battle with Ottawa over Canada’s sanctions against him in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Aleksey Isaykin lost his court challenge seeking his removal from Canada’s sanctions list targeting Russia in August but on Tuesday he filed a notice of appeal in the Federal Court of Appeal in Ottawa.

Appealing sanctions alongside Isaykin is the airline he founded, which owns a massive cargo jet — the world’s largest — that remains stranded at Toronto’s Pearson airport since landing shortly before Canada closed its skies to Russian aircraft in 2022 after Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Isaykin and Volga-Dnepr Airlines were both put on Canada’s sanctions list in 2023 under regulations allowing Ottawa to list a person or corporation on reasonable grounds to believe they have directly or indirectly helped or supported Russia’s “violation or attempted violation of the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

The hulking frame of the four-engined Antonov An-124, a Russian strategic airlift cargo jet with a NATO codename of Condor and the white-blue-and-red flag of Russia on its tail fin, parked at the Toronto airport is the most public sign of the continuing rift.

The plane remains on an out-of-the-way apron at the edge of the airport, accumulating sky-high parking fees. Based on the plane’s long wingspan, the 1,678 days it has been there, and the average of fluctuating per-minute fees for inactive apron space between 2022 and 2026, the parking fees could exceed $4 million.

Ottawa announced plans to seize the plane for “complicity in President Putin’s war of choice” and give it to Ukraine to help compensate for war damage back in 2023, but the process has been bogged down in court.

Isaykin, 74, is a citizen of Russia and Cyprus. He was elected chairman of the board of Volga-Dnepr Airlines LLC in 1990 and served as the airline’s president from 2002 to 2019, according to court records. His name is sometimes spelled Alexey Isaikin.

Although the company flies Antonov An-124 planes, which were designed as a heavy military aircraft, Volga-Dnepr told the court it has refused to carry military cargo since 2018. The airline is part of a larger Russian conglomerate, called the Volga-Dnepr Group (VDG), which is also on the sanctions list.

When sanctioning the airline, Ottawa alleged it had agreed with the Russian government in April 2022 to import goods from countries that had not imposed sanctions on Russia. Ottawa said the airline’s contracts in Moscow restored supply chains that had been interrupted by sanctions and the airline received subsidies from the Russian government to counteract the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy.

Being placed on the sanctions list prevents the businessman and the company from conducting business in Canada or with Canadians.

The airline’s objection to their listing said they are a “peaceful carrier” and that Isaykin had divested his role as majority shareholder and resigned his position as chairman. It said it is not owned by the Russian government, nor involved in Russian politics or war efforts, and not close to the government.

Isaykin was added to the sanctions list at the same time as the airline, on April 5, 2023.

A few months later, he asked to be taken off the list on the grounds that he no longer had any ownership or involvement with the airline. Isaykin said that he is not close to the Russian government and did not provide military services to Russia.

“I confirm that neither I nor any of the companies that form part of the Volga-Dnepr Group provide any aviation service to the Wagner Group or otherwise in relation to the military operations in Ukraine,” Isaykin said in a sworn statement in the court record.

The Wagner Group was a notorious mercenary organization with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and heavily involved in the fighting in Ukraine. It was widely seen internationally as doing much of Russia’s dirty work.

Last October, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Mélanie Joly, declined to lift sanctions from him or the airline.

Joly wrote that Isaykin was the “majority shareholder of the Volga-Dnepr Group and its subsidiaries, and actively involved in the management of the Volga-Dnepr Group when its subsidiaries benefited from subsidies from the Russian government and were awarded contracts to assist with activities intended to ease or otherwise circumvent the effects of sanctions imposed against Russia by Canada and its partners.”

She said the airline helped mitigate the impacts of sanctions on Russia’s supply chain.

As such, he “engaged in activities that directly or indirectly facilitate, support, provide funding for or contribute to a violation or attempted violation of the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Joly wrote.

Joly said his transfer of ownership months after he was listed was a sanctions evasion tactic.

Isaykin asked the Federal Court to intervene in Joly’s decision in November 2024, claiming the decision was unreasonable and procedurally unfair.

He complained that all documentation on him and the airline was not given to Joly when she was making her decision. He said evidence of the airline’s role in humanitarian aid, such as delivering masks, COVID testing kits and vaccines during the pandemic — including vaccines for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund — was not provided to her by government officials. The plane was delivering COVID test kits to Canada during the pandemic when it landed in Toronto and became stranded.

He said that information could have changed the decision. The government argued that while the specific documents weren’t given to Joly, the information in them was summarized for her.

Similar arguments were made by the airline in its motion for a judicial review and the two cases were heard together at a five-hour hearing in April.

Justice Ann Marie McDonald ruled in August on both cases that the procedural fairness protection required in such government decisions was minimal and that Parliament granted the minister wide latitude when passing the sanction regulations.

As for the documentation complaints, McDonald said missing information would have to have been completely omitted from the record to have an impact, but in these cases information from the documents was summarized in the government’s memorandum to Joly and in Isaykin’s delisting application.

“Mr. Isaykin has not identified any errors or misinformation in the summaries that were before the Minister,” her judgment said.

McDonald dismissed both requests for judicial appeals.

Her decisions are now being appealed.

Vincent DeRose, a managing partner of the Ottawa law firm Tereposky & DeRose LLP, declined to comment on the August judgments or the decision to file appeals, saying he had no instructions on it from his clients.

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• Billionaire Russian oligarch’s daughters can’t get off Canada’s sanctions list
• This Russian jet has racked up almost $500K in parking fees at Toronto airport since start of war

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OTTAWA — The Carney government’s recent legislation designed to avoid crippling strikes in the transportation sector was an important response to a growing trend that had the potential to cause serious economic damage, a new think tank report says.

In a report to be released Thursday, the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) writes that Ottawa is justified in stepping in when the two sides in a labour dispute are not “remotely close to reaching common ground” and millions Canadians are paying the price.

The report cited recent lockouts at the ports of Montreal and Vancouver in 2024 and a labour strike a year later at Air Canada as examples of work stoppages that threatened major swaths of the Canadian economy and thousands of jobs. Airlines, ports and rail services are considered key parts of national infrastructure and are relied on by miners, manufacturers, farmers and many other economic sectors.

In August, 2024, for example, the simultaneous shutdowns of rail services at CN and CPKC threatened the transport of about $1-billion of goods a day, the report says.

Gabriel Giguère, a senior policy analyst at MEI and the report’s author, said these types of transportation companies are different than most other employers and warrant unique legislation to help keep them in operation.

“It’s at the centre of the economy,” Giguère said of the transportation sector.

Christopher Monette, a spokesman with Teamsters Canada, whose members include truck drivers and dock workers, said the Canadian economy can withstand limited disruptions much more than “anti-union voices” suggest. More than 95 per cent of collective agreements are resolved without a work stoppage, he said.

“Claiming that few remaining cases are enough to cripple our economy is factually baseless and sells Canada short.”

Ottawa’s response to the sector’s stoppage threat was Bill C-39, more commonly known as the Building Canada Strong Act, an omnibus bill that was introduced last week. The proposed legislation is designed, among many other things, to make it easier to resolve labour disputes in federally regulated transportation industries by clarifying the process for government intervention.

The bill’s measures include an increase in the conciliation period before a strike or lockout and the explicit ability for the labour minister to intervene in the event of a “significant adverse national impact.”

The MEI says the problem of work stoppages in these important sectors has been on the rise. There were 22 recorded work stoppages in the transport sector between 2024 and 2025, an annual average almost three times the four work stoppages in those sectors in 2016.

The government was able to force resolutions to some work stoppages in the industry but its legislative authority was sometimes called into question. This legislation clarifies Ottawa’s ability to take action, as well as the process for doing so.

Monette said the number of referrals have been on the rise because employers lobby the government to use the existing legislation, then point to its frequent use as proof of its importance.

Workers’ rights to strike and to collective bargaining are protected in the Canadian constitution, Monette added, and those rights can’t be ignored because of an alleged economic disruption.

National Post

• Canada’s unions considering legal action to protect right to strike
• Business groups applaud Liberal government’s bill to curb work stoppages and fast-track project approvals

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OTTAWA — When British Columbia Premier David Eby took the risky step last week of calling an election with almost exactly half of his mandate left, he didn’t seem too clear why he was doing so.

But there was no doubt who he wanted to run against.

With the opposition conservatives in disarray, Eby never mentioned the new interim B.C. Conservative leader in his Sept. 22 campaign-opening speech. But he referenced U.S. President Donald Trump at least 20 times, saying it was an “existential moment” and that the New Democratic government would erect a “firebreak” against the American threat.

Less than a month earlier, Québec Premier Christine Fréchette opened her campaign by making it clear that she wanted Trump on the ballot too. Fréchette called the unpopular U.S. leader “her main opponent.”

In both cases, the two premiers seemed to be following the path created by Prime Minister Mark Carney, who won big in the 2025 federal election because he presented himself as the best defender of Canadian interests against Trump’s threats to the country’s economy and sovereignty.

And in both provincial cases, the plan, at least so far, has failed.

“(Voters are) not looking for a rhetorical opposition to Trump,” said Stewart Prest, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia.

That viewed is backed up by the polls. Both Eby and Fréchette’s numbers have plunged and are now at risk of being tossed out of office.

So what happened to playing the Trump card? Has that move lost its potency for incumbents in Canadian politics?

Or is there something unique to Carney — or his job as prime minister — that makes it work?

Analysts say voters seem to have made a distinction in this case that international trade and dealing with Washington are not the provinces’ jobs, so they’re not buying the effort to play the Trump card.

In Eby’s case, they say it was a gross miscalculation to call the election early and to emphasize the province’s need to stand up to Trump, instead of waiting to hold the vote and then focusing on more traditional provincial matters such as health care, education and B.C.’s economic development. The province’s large deficit under Eby is expected to be an election issue at either time, analysts say.

Prest said Eby’s effort to link the election call to Trump might have worked if the Conservatives hadn’t switched leaders just a couple of days earlier.

The previous leader, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, resigned Sept. 20 following a caucus revolt and other internal strife. The former federal MP was seen as more sympathetic to Trump’s MAGA movement and therefore, more vulnerable to the NDP charge that she wouldn’t defend B.C.’s interests against him.

The party’s new interim leader is Lorne Doerkson, a more moderate figure who is also more critical of Trump. He will lead the party into the Oct. 24 election.

Sanjay Jeram, a political scientist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, said voters aren’t usually very good at distinguishing between the responsibilities of the different levels of government, but seemed to have sussed out almost immediately this time that the New Democrats’ election call and efforts to play the Trump card were “disingenuous.”

“It’s a little far-fetched,” said Jeram.

And recent polls reflect that view. When the election was called, Eby’s New Democrats had a solid lead of between four and 10 percentage points over the Conservatives. Since then, depending on the poll, the NDP had fallen as many as six to eight percentage points, with those votes seeming to go straight to the Conservatives. Some recent polls in recent days have the Tory lead down to just a couple of points.

The NDP’s fall should be seen as a “ballot backlash,” said Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute. “There’s a lot of unhappiness with this government.”

Unlike B.C., Quebec has fixed elections, leaving Fréchette and her Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party no choice but to face voters. With the Oct. 5 election less than a week away, CAQ’s polling numbers have fallen five to seven points since the election call.

André Lecours, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa, said Fréchette also had little choice but to play the Trump card because she’s the leader of an unpopular CAQ government that had been in power for almost eight years.

“There was no other card to play,” said Lecours. “She had to play it.”

Analysts are divided over whether the potency of the Trump card has faded in Canadian politics or just won’t work as well at the provincial level.

Lecours said Canadian voters are getting used to the Trump threats and rhetoric and their impact is fading.

Recent polls have Carney’s Liberals with the support of almost half of Canadian voters and the Conservatives almost 20 percentage points behind. If the Trump factor has faded, Carney may be attracting support more for his plan and policies, analysts say, not just his defence of Canada.

If the Trump card has faded as a weapon for incumbents in Canada, some Conservatives acknowledge their challenge may have grown. Carney maintains a big lead without the full boost that he earned last year from his defence against Trump, many voters may now be buying into his policies and plan for the country.

“I think we have to start looking more at Carney for Carney’s success,” says Jeram.

National Post

• Trump attacks still good news for federal Liberals as lead increases among decided voters: poll
• Trump derails the Quebec campaign, but the PQ leader would rather not talk about that

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An Israeli man who was among the passengers who burst into the cockpit of a flight that had been hijacked by the co-pilot and was falling out of the sky on Wednesday described the dramatic rescue in a widely broadcast video interview.

Yaniv Hayun was one of at least four Israelis who helped overpower the co-pilot, who, according to Israeli assessments, tried to crash the aircraft with 174 passengers on board. Flydubai Flight 1073 was en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv when it dropped 17,000 feet in less than two minutes.

Initial assessments indicate it was a foiled terror attack, according to a statement from Israel’s Embassy in Canada.

Hayun said he believes the captain who had been stabbed by his Omani co-pilot managed to push open the cockpit door before he collapsed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later praised the pilot, Captain Smit Machchhar for his “extraordinary bravery.”

“I grabbed the attacker, put him in a chokehold and pulled him out. I called the Israelis who were with us, jumped back in and pulled the controls. I started pulling them back,” Hayun, his shirt still stained with blood, told Netanyahu in the video interview .

Hayun, who quickly emerged as the hero of the FlyDubai incident, said he knew what to do because he watches Air Crash Investigation, a Canadian television show.

The plane began a sharp descent from 34,000 feet roughly two hours and 20 minutes after takeoff, and briefly entered a nosedive over the desert near the Saudi-Jordanian border. It lost half its altitude in less than two minutes, The Washington Post reported.

Hayun, who has an aviation background, said the attacker had been trying to damage the aircraft’s instruments in order to disable the plane.

He believes the wounded captain managed to unlock the cockpit door after he was attacked.

“He was very close to the door, and that made it difficult for us to open it,” Hayun said. “My conclusion is that he managed to open it for us before he collapsed.”

Israeli dentist Musaev Shota, another passenger who helped subdue the co-pilot, told ynet, an Israeli news site, that he ran forward after hearing shouting, helped bind the attacker and then treated the bleeding captain.

Shota said the group tied the suspect’s hands and legs after he continued struggling and later provided emergency treatment to the wounded pilot. Another passenger who was a pilot landed the aircraft.

“The plane began to level out, and then (one of the other pilots aboard the plane) told me he was taking control,” said Hayun.

First images from @flydubai flight: one of the passengers with blood on his shirt https://t.co/zfJ4UsDeaO pic.twitter.com/XDLzuz0DbE

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) September 30, 2026

The aircraft “sent distress signals and abruptly reversed course near the Saudi-Jordanian border before making an emergency landing at a civil-military airport in Tabuk, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, at about 9:45 a.m. local time,” The New York Times reported.

Videos shot aboard the flight appear to show some terrified passengers hunkering down in their seats, screaming and crying as several men on the plane moved forward to subdue the jet’s co-pilot.

Some passengers crouched in the aisle, as if in prayer, and children called for their mothers as the plane, plunged thousands of feet before the aircraft was brought under control and diverted to Saudi Arabia.

Agence France-Presse reported that passengers knew instantly that something was wrong when the plane began plummeting from the sky in a rapid dive.

Footage: The aircraft during the dramatic descent — dropping 4,000 meters in one minute. pic.twitter.com/IYKqxwvNLk

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) September 30, 2026

It was like “we were having very big turbulence, but there was no turbulence,” passenger Almog Italie told AFP, describing the sensation of losing thousands of feet of altitude in seconds as similar to riding a rollercoaster.

“The other passengers from the front took over control,” he told the news agency via video call from Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk, where the plane landed safely following what passengers described as a violent attempt by one pilot to kill the other.

Still, Italie said, “people kept calm.”

One female passenger described the “very stressful” moment people realized the plane was descending, according to a BBC report. “We understood the pilots lost control,” she told Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom.

Yasmin Abukasis told Reuters that her daughter — who was on the flight — said a man holding a knife had forced one of the pilots onto the floor, and that there was blood everywhere.

Speaking from Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, she said her daughter phoned her to say she heard screaming on the plane as a pilot called for help, adding that two other pilots took control of the plane as other passengers ran towards a man who had a knife.

“The plane start to lose control. So all the people, they scream, they think they are going,” Abukasis told AP news agency.

The moment @flydubai flights Landed in Saudi Arabia pic.twitter.com/iYv1MJSV6a

— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) September 30, 2026

One of the passengers who helped subdue the assailant was Zvika Mans, CEO of Bank Leumi’s underwriting company, Barak Leumi, an investment-banking operation.

“It was an incredibly traumatic event,” Mans told financial outlet Calcalist.

“My wife was standing near the cockpit because my daughter was in the bathroom. Suddenly, she heard shouting coming from the cockpit. She shouted to a replacement pilot from Fiji who was sitting there: ‘Get in quickly, see what’s happening,’” he continued.

“He called for help, and two others and I entered the cockpit and subdued the attacker. I’m covered in blood. It was insane,” the CEO recounted.

He noted that the reserve pilot who landed the airplane was from Fiji, the stabbed pilot was from India, and the attacker was from Oman, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.

Miryam Shira Ohayon, who was also on board, described the aircraft as being “pretty much out of control” as the fight ensued.

“The co-pilot tried to murder the pilot and basically carry out a suicide attack on the plane,” she told reporters by speaker phone held up by her mother, who was waiting at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.

“It was really on the way to crashing, and it was simply the resourcefulness of many people who took control of the co-pilot and neutralized him,” she said.

Ohayon noted “there was also a doctor who gave first aid, and people who treated both of them. Other than the pilot, there were no injuries, but the bigger fear was really a crash, which is exactly what he was trying to do.”

Video of the aftermath circulating on social media shows blood smeared on the plane’s interior walls and several passengers as people tried to comfort a wounded man lying near the cockpit. Both the pilot and co-pilot were taken to hospital.

Netanyahu in a video statement credited passengers with preventing a disaster.

Initial assessments “indicate a foiled terror attack intended to crash the aircraft with all passengers on board,” according to a statement from Israel’s Embassy in Canada.

“While a catastrophic tragedy was averted, this severe incident must be understood and treated as if the attack succeeded. It serves as an urgent reminder of the ongoing threats faced by innocent civilians across the globe, who remain deliberate targets simply for being Israeli.”

The embassy called the event an attack on the Abraham Accords, a set of agreements brokered under U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020 and widely heralded as a foreign policy success.

They govern the normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and countries that have historically been hostile to it.

“This was not only an attempt on innocent lives, but a direct attempt by extremist forces to sabotage the vision of peace, stability, and regional normalization fostered by the historic Abraham Accords,” said the embassy’s statement.

According to JNS, video from aboard the aircraft showed passengers singing “Am Yisrael Chai” (“The people of Israel live”) moments after the plane landed safely in Saudi Arabia.

• Canadians born after 9/11 far less likely to fear another terror attack, poll finds
• Terror attacks against Israeli targets thwarted at Paris Olympics

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