FlyDubai flight lands in Tel Aviv after distress alert, Saudi diversion

A FlyDubai flight carrying 174 passengers landed safely in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning after an altercation in the cockpit prompted a distress call while the aircraft was en route from Dubai, triggering an emergency response in Saudi Arabia and sending Israeli fighter jets scrambling.

The flight included 27 children, according to Ynet.

With more than 100 Israeli nationals among those on board, Israeli security agencies initially feared that the plane had been hijacked, Israeli outlet Kan reported. Passengers on board the flight said in videos posted on social media that they had to apprehend one of the pilots who was trying to crash the plane.

i24 News reported that one of the pilots, an Omani national, attempted to crash the plane. After the Omani pilot was apprehended, two additional pilots on board managed to land the plane safely, according to the report.

According to flight-tracking site Flightradar24, the Boeing 737 Max 8 transmitted the emergency code 7700, indicating a general emergency, while it was already in Israeli airspace. Flight data showed that the aircraft descended from 34,000 feet to around 16,000 feet, significantly below its normal cruising altitude for the route.

The distress code prompted an emergency response from Israeli security agencies. Kan reported that two Israeli Air Force jets were scrambled because of the aircraft’s unusual behavior. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz met at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv to discuss the incident and decided not to allow the aircraft to land at Ben Gurion Airport, according to Kan. The flight was due to land at Ben Gurion Airport at 9:10 a.m. local time.

In a statement later Wednesday, Netanyahu said that one of the pilots stabbed the other and “apparently tried to crash the plane with everyone on board.” He said he had spoken with an Israeli passenger who told him the aircraft went into a spin and began to dive before the passenger and a crew member broke into the cockpit and subdued the pilot while he was attempting to sabotage the plane’s systems.

Netanyahu praised the passengers and crew members for their “exceptional resourcefulness and courage,” saying they had prevented a major disaster. He said the stabbing pilot had been arrested and was being questioned by Saudi authorities, and that Israel was maintaining constant contact with relevant authorities to ensure the passengers’ safety and facilitate their return to Israel.

Flightradar24 reported that the aircraft briefly disappeared from radar shortly after transmitting the distress code before reappearing and establishing contact with Saudi authorities. It later landed safely at an airport in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from Israel.

Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk confirmed that FlyDubai Flight FZ1073 landed safely at the airport at 9:45 a.m. local time following a distress call. In a statement issued Wednesday, the airport said the pilot and co-pilot were taken to hospital after sustaining injuries.

In a statement, a FlyDubai spokesperson said an “altercation occurred in the flight deck” of FZ1073. The aircraft was “successfully secured by on-duty flydubai crew travelling on the flight,” who diverted and landed it safely at Tabuk Airport, the spokesperson said.

The airline said it had deployed two replacement aircraft to Tabuk to transport the passengers and crew. “At this early stage, the underlying reasons and motives behind this event are unknown and remain subject to a formal investigation,” the spokesperson said, urging against “premature speculation."

The Israel Airports Authority said Thursday morning that Israeli airspace remained open and flight operations were proceeding as usual. It said the airspace had not been closed at any point during the incident.

For his part, Israel’s ambassador to the UAE Amir Hayek praised the Emirati national carriers, FlyDubai and Etihad, saying they are “the only two airlines in the world that continued flying to Israel even during the most difficult times.”

“The UAE and the airline deserve for us to set aside speculation and allow them to thoroughly investigate what actually happened, I trust them,” he wrote on X.

Passengers recount incident

A video filmed by an unidentified Israeli passenger on board showed him wearing a shirt stained with blood. “We are in the midst of a plane hijacking,” he said in the video, published by Kan and Ynet. “We have now subdued the hijackers, and we are about to land." The passenger stressed that everyone on board was safe, except for the pilot.

Yitzhak Lieber, another Israeli passenger, recounted the incident in a video clip published by Ynet, saying that he and other people on board had “subdued a knife-wielding attacker here who stabbed one of the pilots."

"We jumped in and pulled him out of the cockpit. The attacker has been neutralized. There’s a seriously injured pilot here and another injured pilot who managed to land the plane," Lieber added.

Another passenger, Dalia Spiegel, told Haaretz that about an hour before landing, the passengers felt that the plane was losing control and beginning to nosedive. Passengers seated at the front of the plane entered the cockpit, she said.

Kan reported that the Mossad was investigating the incident and that Israeli authorities had not ruled out the possibility that the incident on board the aircraft was a terrorist attack.

Israeli authorities are now investigating how an Omani national was authorized to serve as a pilot on an aircraft destined for Israel, Kan reported. According to the report, aviation agreements between Israel and other countries include a clause barring citizens of enemy states from serving as flight-crew members.

This is a developing story that will be updated.