flydubai axe attack renews scrutiny: Key aircraft incidents since 9/11 that reshaped aviation safety rules

A flydubai co-pilot stabbed his captain with an emergency "crash axe" in what UAE prosecutors have called a terrorist attack, with the plane plunging 16,000 feet in 30 seconds before it was brought under control by passengers and a stand-by crew.

It landed safely thanks to some heroics from the injured captain, with all on board surviving. The co-pilot is being questioned, with Israeli officials saying that he had planned the attack even before joining the airline.

Also read: flydubai horror: Co-pilot planned attack before being hired by airline, two Israeli officials say


The incident on the flight bound for Tel Aviv from Dubai has once more put on-board security and pilot-screening procedures under scrutiny, after previous incidents from 9/11 to the 2015 Germanwings crash led to changes in safety protocols.

Here is a timeline of some of the major commercial aviation incidents since 2001 and how they changed aviation security or cockpit access rules.

9/11 ATTACKS

On September 11, 2001, al Qaeda hijackers took over four US passenger jets, crashing two into the World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon outside Washington. Nearly 3,000 people were killed.

The attacks reshaped aviation security, with US airport screening beefed up in November that year and the federal air marshal programme greatly expanded.

US airlines had to install reinforced cockpit doors built to withstand forced entry and gunfire by April 2003. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) later made the doors a worldwide requirement.

A US rule requiring a second barrier to protect the cockpit whenever the door is opened in flight took effect for new aircraft in August 2026.

'SHOE BOMBER'

On December 22, 2001, British national Richard Reid tried to blow up an American Airlines jet flying from Paris to Miami with homemade explosives hidden in his shoes. Crew and passengers subdued him as he tried to detonate the bomb and the flight diverted safely to Boston.

The foiled attack led US airport security to require passengers to remove their shoes at security screenings starting in 2006, a mandate that was lifted in 2025.

MOZAMBIQUE AIRLINES

An Embraer regional jet operated by Mozambique Airlines crashed in Namibia on November 29, 2013, after it began a sudden descent, killing 27 passengers and 6 crew members.

Investigators found the aircraft started losing altitude after captain Herminio dos Santos manually changed the settings while his co-pilot had gone to the bathroom. Dos Santos locked the co-pilot out of the cockpit and brought the plane down after altering the plane's speed and altitude several times.

In its final report, the Namibian agency investigating the incident recommended Mozambique regulators ensure two people are always in the flight deck and called on ICAO to create standards to stop authorized crew members from being locked out of the cockpit.

GERMANWINGS CRASH

An Airbus A320 operated by Lufthansa's low-cost carrier Germanwings crashed in the French Alps on March 24, 2015, after co-pilot Andreas Lubitz locked the captain out of the cockpit and deliberately flew the aircraft into a mountainside, killing 150 people.

Also read: 'Co-pilot planned attack before joining Flydubai'

Investigators said Lubitz, whose death was ruled a suicide, had shown symptoms consistent with a "psychotic depressive episode" months before the crash.

Three days after the crash, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued a temporary recommendation that two people, one of them a pilot, remain in the cockpit at all times during flight. It later softened its position, leaving airlines to decide case by case, but tightened mental health rules, adding a mandatory psychological assessment for pilots.