According to the available accounts, the captain’s opening of the door enabled some people on board to enter the cockpit and overpower the attacker. Sources are not consistent in describing his role: they refer to him as a pilot or, more specifically, as the co-pilot.
The aircraft then made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The passengers were subsequently transferred to another aircraft and reached Tel Aviv, according to the sequence reported by sources that followed the incident.
Authorities are seeking to establish how the altercation in the cockpit began and what its motive was. Based on the available information, a definitive motive has not yet been independently confirmed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the attacker had undergone Islamist radicalization and intended to crash the aircraft. This is a characterization attributed to the prime minister, not an element independently established by the reported investigations.
Some reports identified the attacker as an Omani citizen or an Omani pilot. His name, however, is not established in the available material; his precise role also remains described inconsistently by the various sources.
The circumstances have fueled the theory that there was an attempt to take control of the aircraft, but the material examined does not make it possible to establish with certainty either the motive or the aircraft’s precise location when the attack began.
The flight number and exact date of the incident also remain unspecified in the available sources. What is confirmed, however, is the assault in the cockpit, the intervention by passengers, the landing in Saudi Arabia and the subsequent arrival in Tel Aviv on another aircraft.