A flydubai aircraft carrying 174 people could have crashed during a mid-air emergency if a third pilot had not intervened and landed the plane safely, Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) president Captain C.S. Randhawa said on Thursday, highlighting serious concerns over cockpit safety following a violent confrontation between two pilots.

Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar was injured during an altercation with the co-pilot aboard Flight FZ1073, which was travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday. The aircraft was subsequently diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and landed safely, with all passengers and crew reported safe.

Randhawa, who has five decades of aviation experience, said he had never witnessed a similar episode of violence inside a cockpit. He stressed that investigators must establish how the confrontation began, what happened during the struggle and how the crew managed to regain control of the aircraft.

FLIGHT TERROR

✈️ Passengers overcame co-pilot who tried to crash flydubai flight, Netanyahu says

Sep 30, 2026

On September 30, 2026, #FlyDubai Flight FZ1073 from #Dubai to Tel Aviv was diverted to Saudi Arabia after a suspected #jihadist terror attack in the cockpit. The… pic.twitter.com/qMLj7QaptN

— Sid (@Trending_Sid) September 30, 2026

“If a third pilot was not present, the aircraft would have crashed,” Randhawa told IANS, warning that the incident could have ended in a major tragedy.

His assessment puts the spotlight on the role of the third pilot and raises questions about cockpit security, crew resource management and the procedures designed to prevent a single confrontation from escalating into a flight emergency.

Flight Recorders Crucial to Establish What Happened

Randhawa said the cockpit voice recorder and digital flight data recorder would be central to reconstructing the incident.

The cockpit voice recorder could help investigators establish when the confrontation began, identify conversations between crew members and capture sounds from inside the cockpit. The flight data recorder, meanwhile, would provide technical information on the aircraft’s altitude, descent profile and flight-control parameters.

He also referred to microphone recordings that could help establish which pilot was speaking and reconstruct the sequence of events, including possible exchanges involving people who entered the cockpit.

“So, I do not know what the investigation will reveal when officials take the statements of the crew members, the passengers, and the third pilot. This will be further substantiated by the cockpit voice recorder. It is a very important piece of evidence to establish when this whole thing started,” he said.

Randhawa cautioned against speculation that the confrontation was a terrorist act. He said investigators would first need to establish the co-pilot’s intentions and determine whether there was any evidence of a deliberate attempt to bring down the aircraft.

“There are also theories about terrorism… that it is a deliberate attempt. I think it is premature to say that there was an act of terror, because that has to be established,” he said.

If investigators establish that the confrontation involved a deliberate attempt to crash the aircraft, the inquiry would have to examine the co-pilot’s possible motives and any links to organisations, he added.

Randhawa also raised the possibility that the incident could have involved a suicide attempt, while praising Machchhar for resisting the attacker and the third pilot for bringing the aircraft to safety.

Cockpit Safety and Pilot Screening Under Scrutiny

Randhawa said the confrontation may have escalated through several stages, beginning with an argument before turning physical and potentially involving a weapon. However, he emphasised that this was a possible sequence rather than an established account of what happened aboard the aircraft.

He explained how a physical struggle inside a cockpit could interfere with flight controls. If a pilot became unstrapped and accidentally struck the control column during a fight, the aircraft could potentially disengage from autopilot and descend sharply.

“During the brawl in the cockpit. One of the pilots might have unstrapped himself, and if one of them had hit his leg on the control column, the autopilot mode would have dropped, and the aeroplane would have steeply descended,” he said.

The FIP chief identified a possible failure of crew resource management (CRM) as one area investigators should examine. CRM focuses on communication, coordination, decision-making and the management of human factors among flight crews.

He also called for regular psychometric assessments of pilots to identify stress and other psychological factors that could affect cockpit safety.

“Psychometric tests of pilots need to be carried out on a regular basis to know about their mental condition, whether they are under some kind of stress or not,” he said.

Randhawa argued that similar screening should be introduced in India’s aviation sector, describing the incident as a warning for the global aviation industry.

However, the proposal raises a broader policy question about how airlines and regulators can identify genuine safety risks while protecting medical confidentiality, preventing discrimination and ensuring that psychological assessments are scientifically validated.

The investigation into Flight FZ1073 will be crucial in determining whether the emergency exposed gaps in cockpit security, crew coordination or existing pilot fitness procedures. Until the findings are released, the precise cause of the confrontation and the extent to which existing safety measures failed remain unresolved.