FlyDubai Dubai-Israel flight lands in Saudi after cockpit fight sparks scare

A FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Israel made an emergency landing in Tabuk after a violent altercation apparently erupted in the cockpit. The episode injured both pilots, triggered Israeli air force alerts and is now under investigation.

In Short

• Captain and first officer were injured and taken to Tabuk hospital
• Flight tracking showed a sudden drop and erratic turn near Jordan
• Videos showed bloodied men, emergency treatment, and passengers crying in fear

A FlyDubai flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after a fight apparently broke out in the cockpit, according to two officials. The incident prompted Israel to scramble warplanes over fears of a possible hijacking of a plane carrying dozens of Israelis.

The aircraft landed safely in Tabuk and an investigation is under way. An Israeli official said Israel believes there may have been an attempt to attack Israelis.

Publicly available flight tracking data showed that around two and a half hours after leaving Dubai, the plane sent an emergency alert. According to Flightradar24, the flight then dropped sharply from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in about a minute, made an erratic circle near the Jordanian border and landed in Tabuk about an hour later.

Video footage circulating on social media and reviewed by AP showed two men on the floor of the plane with bloody injuries. Two people appeared to be giving emergency medical treatment, while two others stood guard near the cockpit. In one video, a person says in Hebrew, "We are guarding the pilot." In another, passengers are seen weeping and crying out as the aircraft shakes.

A statement from Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk, carried by Saudi state-run Alekhbariya television, said the captain and the first officer were injured and taken to hospital. A regional official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media, said passengers were receiving medical attention from local authorities.

The Israeli official said a fight broke out between two pilots, one of whom was armed with a knife. A second regional official briefed on the incident also said a fight broke out in the cockpit and apparently involved pilots. "The crew have been questioned as part of the investigation," the regional official said, adding that it was not immediately clear what had caused the fight. Another official confirmed that Israel had scrambled warplanes, fearing a hijacking. The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter was under investigation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned in recent days of unspecified heightened security threats. Israel is days away from marking the anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, weeks away from an election, and has been involved in multiple conflicts in the last three years. Netanyahu's office said the situation was under control and Israel was working to bring the passengers home.

Yasmin Abukasis, whose daughter was on the flight, said her daughter told her by phone that she heard someone screaming "help!" Abukasis said her daughter told her the plane appeared to lose control, causing passengers to scream in fear. She added that two people, whom her daughter identified as pilots, eventually managed to wrest control of the plane, while others tried to subdue an attacker on the floor. She did not say who the attacker was.

Passengers also told Israel's Channel 12 by phone that people seated closer to the front heard an altercation between the pilots, and that the plane plunged steeply before landing in Saudi Arabia. The airport in Tabuk said the FlyDubai flight made a distress call at 8:44 am local time and landed safely at 9:45 am local time.

FlyDubai confirmed that flight FZ 1073, which was headed to Ben Gurion Airport, experienced an incident and landed in Tabuk on Wednesday. "Our teams are working closely with the relevant authorities," the airline said.

Israelis were targeted in a series of hijackings and plane attacks by Palestinian militants in the 1960s and 1970s. Israel has not faced a hijacking in decades, but it maintains some of the world's strictest airport security, including on flights bound for the country. The emergency landing in Saudi Arabia was also not the first involving a plane carrying Israelis home. Saudi Arabia does not have formal diplomatic ties with Israel, but in 2022 it ended its longstanding ban on Israeli flights using its airspace. Since then, the kingdom has coordinated multiple emergency landings for Israeli passengers, including in 2023 when a plane suffered an electrical malfunction. The UAE has meanwhile become a popular holiday destination for Israeli tourists since the two countries normalised ties in 2020, and FlyDubai is the low-cost sister airline of Emirates.

In summary, the FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Israel landed safely in Tabuk after an apparent fight in the cockpit left both pilots injured, triggered an emergency alert and led Israel to scramble warplanes, with officials now investigating what happened on board.

With PTI Inputs

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