The evidence assessed so far suggests that this was an attempted terror attack that was narrowly avoided thanks to the coincidental presence of a second team of pilots. The actions of this group, along with the Israeli passengers, helped bring the situation under control and protect numerous lives.
It's too early to definitively call this terrorism. Early Israeli readings of the flight data pointed to a pilot suicide attempt, investigators are still weighing multiple motives, and neither flydubai nor Saudi authorities have confirmed Israel's account. This may instead echo the 2015 Germanwings crash, in which a co-pilot deliberately crashed his plane as a result of mental-health failure, not a terror plot.
There's a 33% chance that Israel and Saudi Arabia will normalize relations during Donald Trump's second presidency, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
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