US President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given him an account of the incident aboard a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, in which the Israeli premier said a plumber saved the plane.
“Now, this is the story that I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s the story that I got from Bibi,” Trump said at the White House while cautioning that he could not verify all the details.
“I think it’s the most amazing story,” Trump said, adding that he had spoken to Netanyahu “at length” about the incident.
JUST IN – President Trump says Netanyahu told him that an Israeli plumber took over the controls and saved a flydubai plane from crashing: "I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s the story I got from Bibi.” pic.twitter.com/zmU4FGFpF7
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) September 30, 2026
Trump said he had been told the co-pilot may have attacked the captain and tried to bring down the aircraft.
Trump then went on, recounting Netanyahu’s account in which “an Israeli passenger who was a plumber pulled the co-pilot from his seat and briefly took control of the aircraft before other pilots took over.”
The aircraft made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after transmitting distress signal over reported fight between pilots in the plane’s cockpit. Flydubai has said the circumstances remain under investigation.
Source: Agencies (edited by Al-Manar)