The crash axe used in the September 30 attack aboard flydubai Flight FZ1073 was not contraband. It was emergency equipment carried on the Boeing 737 MAX for use by the flight crew.
UAE authorities have described the incident as an attempted terrorist attack. According to Reuters, the co-pilot attacked the captain with the aircraft’s crash axe before others aboard intervened and the flight diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The investigation is continuing.
Crash axes are carried for emergencies in which a damaged aircraft leaves crews needing to cut, pry or break through material to reach a fire, clear an obstruction or escape when a normal exit cannot be used. There is also a documented modern jetliner case in which the tool helped: an MD-11 crewmember used one to disable an evacuation slide that had inflated inside the cabin.
What is a crash axe supposed to do?
SAE International’s current aircraft crash-axe standard describes the tool as equipment for evacuation, extrication, firefighting and other emergency activities. In a 1995 rulemaking, the FAA said the primary reason for requiring an axe was emergency egress after an accident when normal exits were unusable, while also acknowledging other possible uses.
That does not mean the normal escape plan is to chop through a cockpit windshield. Modern airliners have designed escape and rescue routes; Boeing’s 737 MAX rescue guide, for example, identifies the cockpit sliding windows as rescue-access points. The axe is backup equipment for damaged, obstructed or otherwise abnormal conditions.
The U.S. still requires an axe; Europe and the UAE allow a crowbar
For U.S. airlines operating under Part 121, 14 CFR 121.309(e) requires a crash ax on covered airplanes, with a limited exception for certain nontransport-category aircraft. The wording specifies the tool rather than only the emergency function.
European rules are broader. EASA CAT.IDE.A.255 requires airplanes above 5,700 kilograms maximum takeoff mass or with more than nine passenger seats to carry at least one crash axe or crowbar in the flight crew compartment. Aircraft configured for more than 200 passengers need another axe or crowbar in or near the rearmost galley.
The UAE commercial-air-transport rule uses the same axe-or-crowbar approach and the same size thresholds. Flydubai therefore operates under a regulatory system that requires a breaching tool in the flight deck but does not require that the tool be an axe.
| Jurisdiction | Rule for larger commercial aircraft |
|---|---|
| United States, Part 121 | Crash ax required, subject to a limited exception |
| EASA | Crash axe or crowbar |
| United Arab Emirates | Crash axe or crowbar |
There is a documented case where an axe helped on a modern jet
Delta Air Lines Flight 12 provides a direct answer to whether this equipment has ever been useful on a modern jetliner. On March 31, 2002, the MD-11 diverted to Charlotte after an engine-fire warning and the crew ordered an evacuation after landing.
During the evacuation, the slide at the forward-right door inflated inside the cabin instead of outside the airplane. The NTSB survival-factors report records that the slide pinned a flight attendant and blocked the exit. A cockpit crewmember used the crash axe to deflate the slide.
The crew did not use the axe to cut through the fuselage. It provided a fast way to disable an obstructing evacuation slide during an emergency that had developed in an unexpected way.
Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529 exposed a design problem
Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529 produced a very different result in 1995. The Embraer EMB-120 crashed in Georgia after a propeller blade separated in flight, and a post-crash fire trapped the captain and first officer in the cockpit.
The first officer could not open his sliding cockpit window. According to the NTSB accident report, he tried to chop through the hardened Plexiglas side window with the aircraft’s crash ax and could not make an effective opening.
Investigators examined the tool and found a blade on one side and a nail-puller-type feature on the other. The NTSB concluded that a proper pry-bar feature might have allowed the first officer to force the window or its frame, and recommended a technical standard based on the functions an aircraft crash axe needed to perform. SAE issued that standard in 2001 and reaffirmed the current revision in 2021.
The U.S. reconsidered the requirement in 1955
The federal requirement has already survived one substantial review. In 1955, the Civil Aeronautics Board reconsidered rules that would have required a second axe on larger airliners and exterior markings showing rescuers where to chop into the fuselage.
The Board’s final rule said modern pressurized fuselages were so resistant to hand tools that rescuers could waste time trying to cut through them when emergency exits offered faster access. The Board found no evidence supporting a second axe and eliminated that requirement along with the old chop markings.
It kept one crash axe aboard. The Board said its review of civil operations had found occasions when use of an aircraft axe had clearly benefited safety, even though it found no record at that time of an axe being used in an air-carrier accident.
Composite aircraft are even harder to penetrate with an axe
Modern materials have made the fuselage-cutting role less convincing on some aircraft. Boeing tested rescue tools against the composite structure used on the 787 and found that the point of a standard fire axe would bounce back rather than easily penetrate the fuselage.
In its 787 rescue and firefighting guidance, Boeing says some hand tools can be driven through the composite with help from a sledgehammer. A hand axe by itself is a poor tool for creating an opening through that structure.
Interior panels, damaged fittings, jammed exits and obstructions present different materials and different problems from an intact composite fuselage. The 787 test says little about those uses; it does show that a conventional axe is poorly suited to punching through some modern exterior structures.
The FAA has previously weighed the security risk
The security hazard created by carrying an axe aboard an aircraft has appeared in FAA rulemaking before. In 1995, the agency considered how Part 121 rules should apply to smaller commuter aircraft moving from Part 135 operations.
The FAA’s final rule said it would not require crash axes on certain nontransport-category airplanes in part because those aircraft did not need the same kind of lockable flight-deck door. The agency specifically said an axe in those airplanes would create a security risk because it would not be inaccessible to passengers.
On a large airliner, the hardened cockpit door largely solves the passenger-access problem. Flight FZ1073 presents a different scenario because UAE authorities say the person who used the axe was a member of the flight crew with legitimate access to the cockpit and its emergency equipment.
Does an airliner still need an axe?
The accident record supports carrying some kind of emergency breaching tool. Delta Flight 12 is a concrete example of one solving a problem during an evacuation, while Flight 529 shows why crews can need cutting and prying capability after an aircraft is badly damaged.
The case for requiring an axe specifically is less settled. EASA and the UAE already permit a crowbar as an alternative, the NTSB has emphasized function over the traditional axe shape, and Boeing’s composite testing shows that a conventional axe can be ineffective against some modern structures.
A crowbar does not remove the insider-threat problem; it is also a heavy object that can be used as a weapon. The flydubai attack therefore points toward a broader review of the equipment’s job, design, storage and accessibility rather than an assumption that changing one metal tool for another resolves the security issue.
A modern review could start with the required emergency tasks: opening a jammed exit, reaching a concealed fire, clearing an obstruction and creating an escape route after structural damage. The equipment can then be tested against those jobs on current aircraft, with cockpit security treated as another design constraint.
The record supports retaining a breaching capability in the cockpit. It also gives regulators reason to reconsider whether a traditional axe is the best way to provide it on every modern airliner. Flight FZ1073 adds an insider-security failure to a record that already includes both a successful emergency use and a case in which the axe could not do the job the crew needed.