New flight-tracking data is revealing just how close a Flydubai jet came to catastrophe on Wednesday morning. According to Flightradar24, flight FZ1073, carrying 174 people including 27 children from Dubai to Tel Aviv, plummeted 14,125 feet in only 29 seconds, a fall so steep and so fast that it left the aircraft in what trackers described as a near-vertical dive. The terrifying descent is reported to have begun after the co-pilot allegedly turned violent, attacking the captain and forcing the plane into the dive before losing control of the cockpit. Passengers described a scene of sheer panic as the jet lurched downward, with some accounts suggesting off-duty personnel on board helped regain control alongside the crew, though the identities and roles of those who intervened have not been officially confirmed.

Despite the harrowing plunge, the aircraft ultimately stabilized and landed safely at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia, where both the captain and co-pilot were rushed to the hospital with injuries. Aviation experts say a drop of that magnitude in under 30 seconds would typically only be seen in an emergency descent following a loss of cabin pressure, making the numbers themselves a stark indicator of just how violent the confrontation in the cockpit must have been. Investigators in Israel and Saudi Arabia are now combing through flight data, cockpit recordings, and passenger accounts to reconstruct exactly what happened during those critical seconds. For now, officials on all sides agree on one thing, the outcome could have been far worse, and everyone aboard walked away alive.