Flydubai Near-Disaster Brings Pilot Suicides Back Into Focus

A Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv narrowly avoided catastrophe when one of the pilots allegedly tried to stab his colleague, forcing the plane into a steep plunge and an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The incident revives concerns about cockpit crews’ mental health and recalls past incidents of pilot murder-suicides.

The cases are rare but not unheard of. A US Federal Aviation Administration study in 2014 found that eight of 2,758 fatal aviation incidents between 2003 and 2012 were determined to be aircraft-assisted murder-suicides.

A Bloomberg News investigation in 2022 found that as aircraft become more reliable and pilots become less susceptible to errors, fatalities caused by pilots deliberately crashing their planes are becoming an increasingly larger share of the total. While intentional acts traditionally aren’t included in air-crash statistics, they would be the second-largest category of deaths worldwide if they were, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Here are some of the more recent examples:

Air India Flight 171

In June 2025, an Air India Ltd. service bound for London crashed 32 seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad, India. The disaster killed 241 passengers and crew, along with 19 people on the ground, as the Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner slammed into a densely populated urban area beyond the airport perimeter. One passenger miraculously survived.

Indian aviation authorities have yet to release their final report and haven’t publicly confirmed that the crash was a pilot suicide. However, a preliminary report released in July 2025 said both engines shut down after two fuel control switches in the cockpit were moved from the “run” position to the “cutoff” position in quick succession. It didn’t establish why the switches were moved or who moved them.

Cockpit audio captured one pilot asking the other why he had flipped the switches, and the other denying doing so. The report didn’t identify which pilot made which remark.

China Eastern 5735

In March 2022, a China Eastern Airlines Corp. domestic flight from Kunming to Guangzhou was cruising at about 29,000 feet when it suddenly dove at high speed, according to Flightradar24 data. Surveillance videos show the Boeing 737-800 hurtling nose-down toward the ground.

Findings released by the US National Transportation Safety Board in May show that levers controlling the flow of fuel to the jet’s engines were switched to the “cutoff” position while the Boeing 737 aircraft was at a cruising altitude of 29,000 feet. The movement would have immediately stopped the fuel supply to the engines, causing them to shut down.

Bloomberg News and other media outlets have previously reported preliminary evidence pointed to a murder-suicide event, but no official information has been disclosed into the possible causes. Chinese authorities have reportedly cited national security reasons for not releasing a final report.

Germanwings 9525

In 2015, an Airbus SE A320 operated by Germanwings crashed in the French Alps after one of the pilots locked himself in the cockpit and flew into a mountain, killing all 150 people on board. Investigators said the co-pilot of the flight was suffering from a psychosomatic illness and had researched suicide methods and cockpit-door mechanics prior to the incident.

Malaysia Airlines 370

One of aviation’s biggest unsolved mysteries is the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which departed from Kuala Lumpur in March 2014 and was supposed to head to Beijing but instead veered off course over the ocean. No cause has been identified since the plane hasn’t been found, but the incident is widely attributed to pilot suicide.

Photograph: A plane carrying passengers from an earlier Flydubai flight that was diverted to Saudi Arabia, arrives at Ben Gurion Airport in Tzafria, Israel, on Sept. 30, 2026; photo credit: Erik Marmor/Getty Images

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