A hero passenger who stormed the cockpit after a pilot was stabbed says he knew how to stop the Flydubai plane from crashing from watching television shows.

Yaniv Hayoun, a plumber, said he and others pushed their way into the cockpit after a passenger saw one pilot stab the other and call out for help on Wednesday (local time).

Hayoun saw the alleged stabber pilot apparently trying to destroy the controls of the Israel-bound flight, Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 reported.

The aircraft’s data appeared to show it suddenly dropped 4200 metres in less than 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.

“The door apparently wasn’t locked, and we managed to open it somehow,” Hayoun told journalists.

“What made it difficult for us was the (other) pilot himself. He had been stabbed and was on the other side of the door.”

As people wrestled with the attacker, Hayoun said he grabbed the controls and pulled them the way he had seen on television.

“I pulled up the yoke (steering control), I straightened the plane out a bit,” he said.

“I saw two unmanned yokes with no pilots and I’ve watched this (TV) program, Flight Investigation, and I knew I had to pull.”

The show was reportedly Air Crash Investigation which dramatises real-life air disasters.

Other crew members then took over and flew the planeload of mostly Israeli passengers to Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk Airport.

A photo of the pilot who was stabbed. Photo: Supplied

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hayoun had “acted with a coolness of judgement and heroism that prevented another 9/11”.

“He’s an incredible hero. Look at what he did under impossible circumstances,” Netanyahu told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“Without his courage, we’d have faced a disaster of unbelievable proportions.”

Netanyahu said Israel would “get to the root” of the attack but stopped short of calling it terrorism, however Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said it was “a jihadist terror attempt”.

Israeli officials said the attacker’s motive aboard flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv remained under investigation.

A Flydubai flight took the passengers from Saudi Arabia to Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv after the ordeal. Photo: AAP

Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, signed the Abraham Accords normalising relations in 2020.

“I just can say that it was a miracle. It was awful, crazy, and we thank God that we survived it, we didn’t think we will make it but thank God we are in Israel. We are back home. And we are happy to see everyone here,” passenger Lital Shachaf said.

Israel’s ambulance service said a 51-year-old man was taken to an Israeli hospital to be treated for injuries ‌to his upper body.

The man ‌was in a “mild condition,” it said.

Describing ⁠the event as “a serious security incident,” Netanyahu said Saudi authorities would interrogate the co-pilot.

Flydubai said in a statement that the underlying reasons for the event ​remained unknown and warned against “premature speculation”.

An Israeli official identified the co-pilot as an Omani citizen.

Netanyahu said there were 174 people on board the flight from Dubai, most of them Israeli citizens.

Netanyahu saluted the Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar for his “extraordinary bravery”.

“Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster.

“He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals. I wish Captain Machchhar a speedy and full recovery. He is a true hero.”

About the time the plane landed in Saudi Arabia, Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office, told Reuters the incident was not believed to have been a hijacking, describing it as a “different incident”.

The Israeli officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to brief reporters, said Israel’s assessment was that the incident was an attempted “terror attack” and not related ‌to any kind of mental ‌health issue with either of the pilots.

Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk airport, where the plane landed, said that both pilots had been hospitalised after suffering injuries.

The Boeing 737 plane transmitted three emergency signals before landing at Tabuk airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia, according to Flightradar24.

Israeli media published conflicting reports on the incident, with some outlets reporting that a pilot had tried to crash the passenger plane in ​an alleged suicide attempt. ‌

Some Israeli media outlets identified the pilots as Omani and Emirati nationals, while others said they were Russian and Ukrainian.

The incident triggered national security consultations in Israel, which has no official diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, where the plane landed.

-with AAP