Does a video show a FlyDubai plane plummeting after an incident on board a Tel Aviv flight in September 2026? No, that's not true: The clip shows an aircraft operated by Azul Brazilian Airlines, not FlyDubai. Separately, the video predates the Sept. 30, 2026, FlyDubai incident in which a co-pilot stabbed the pilot and attempted to crash the plane, so it could not show that event even if the aircraft had been a FlyDubai plane.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by the @Abdo797ab account on X on Oct. 1, 2026. Translated from Arabic, it read:
Thus, the Flydubai plane plummeted vertically in a terrifying manner.
And according to the scenario of the Indian film
The Israeli passengers open the door, start an action movie, overpower the pilot and try to fly the plane themselves... even though they don't even know how to fly a plane in the first place. ✈️
This is what a screenshot of the video in the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @Abdo797ab on X.)
The post is embedded below:
هكذا سقطت طائرة فلاي دبي بشكل عمودي ومرعب.
-- 𝐀𝐛𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐡 (@Abdo797ab) October 1, 2026
وبحسب سيناريو الفيلم الهندي
الركاب الإسرائيليون يفتحون الباب، يبدأون فيلم أكشن، يسيطرون على الطيار ويحاولون قيادة الطائرة بأنفسهم... رغم أنهم لا يعرفون كيف تُقاد الطائرة أصلًا. ✈️ pic.twitter.com/mgYKIsNb1P
The aircraft shown in the video is not a FlyDubai plane; it is operated by Azul Brazilian Airlines. Lead Stories rotated the screenshot 90 degrees to compare it with an image from Airbus (archived here), which makes the aircraft for Azul:
(Image source: Airbus.)
FlyDubai planes (archived here) have a very different paint scheme than Azul, as seen below:
(Image source: FlyDubai.)
Lead Stories was unable to pinpoint the origin of the video but did find that the same clip (archived here) had been published on YouTube on Sept. 18, 2026, a full 12 days before the incident that nearly crashed the FlyDubai jet.
The video is embedded below:
Ultimately, the video is likely a clip of an Azul plane making a regular landing, but rotated 90 degrees.
Background
On Sept. 30, 2026, a FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv carrying 174 people made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after its co-pilot stabbed the captain and attempted to crash the plane (archived here). The aircraft rapidly descended from about 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in roughly a minute before the wounded captain opened the cockpit door, allowing a passenger and a crew member to subdue the attacker while other crew members regained control. The plane landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and the co-pilot was arrested; his motive remains under investigation.
