The passengers on board the plane were able to land in Tel Aviv in the early evening.
Many of the approximately 170 passengers cheered as their new plane touched down at Ben-Gurion Airport, video footage shows. When they reached the airport terminal, they were greeted by relatives and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Several of the passengers had then testified about an attack aimed at bringing down the plane.
"We heard screams on the plane. Then they opened the cockpit and we saw blood and someone had stabbed the pilot with a pocket knife," a passenger told Israeli Keshet 12.
Plunge
The testimony is supported by Netanyahu, who says in a videotaped speech that one pilot stabbed the other “and apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board” and that only the actions of the “heroic passengers” prevented a major disaster.
The plane was en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv and had just entered Jordanian airspace when it sent out two distress signals. Within a minute, it appears to have plummeted from an altitude of around 10,000 to 5,000 meters.
The plane turned around and landed in northern Saudi Arabia. The plane's passengers are reported to have escaped relatively unharmed and have begun flying to Israel on another plane. Both pilots have been taken to hospital.
The plane, a Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by the state-owned Emirati airline Flydubai, was carrying almost exclusively Israeli citizens, according to Netanyahu, who said he had ordered security forces to take steps to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
Political points
Israel's Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who belongs to the government's far-right and most hardline faction, claims that it is an act of terrorism, without presenting evidence, and emphasizes that Israel must step up.
He is supported by Defense Minister Israel Katz, who describes the incident as "an attempted jihadist attack." Meanwhile, Transportation Minister Miri Regev wants to stop Flydubai from flying to Israel.
The ministers' statements have drawn criticism from the opposition, which accuses the government of scoring political points on the incident, a month before the Israeli election.
While people were fighting for their lives, they (the government) were trying to find ways to put together a narrative that benefits them, said Avigdor Liberman, who leads the secular right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu, according to The Times of Israel .
