Flydubai co-pilot accused in cockpit axe attack on flight to Tel Aviv
The Financial Times headline calls the incident a “terrorist act”, but the supplied report does not establish a motive or legal finding.
A co-pilot is accused of launching an axe attack in the cockpit of Flydubai Flight 1073 as it headed to Tel Aviv, according to a Financial Times report published on 3 October.
The FT headline characterises the incident as a “terrorist act”. The brief excerpt says only that the flight was heading to Tel Aviv when the attack began; it gives no further account of the events or any evidence for that characterisation.
Background material says the UAE prosecutor general accused the co-pilot of attacking the captain with a crash axe during a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. The UAE was investigating the incident and possible motives, according to that material.
The supplied background also reports that the aircraft descended about 17,000 feet and that passengers and crew subdued the co-pilot. It says reserve pilots landed the aircraft in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Those details are not independently established in the brief FT excerpt.
The material provided does not establish a motive or a legal finding that the incident constituted terrorism.
