A flydubai flight travelling from Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates to Ben Gurion Airport in Israel was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after briefly raising concerns about a possible hijacking attempt. However, later authorities said that Flight FDB1073, which reportedly had 180 passengers onboard, was diverted after a 'violent clash' between the two pilots.
The Boeing 737 MAX has safely landed in Tabuk, a civilian and military base in Saudi Arabia, authorities said.
Eyewitness Account
Passengers on board the plane told Israel's Ch12 by phone that they heard shouts from those sitting more forward on the plane who heard the altercation between the pilots, and the plane dipped steeply before landing in Saudi Arabia.
They also said that all the passengers are staying on the plane and that there is a heavy presence of Saudi security forces surrounding them.
'We heard screams, the plane dived,' another passenger told The Times of Israel, giving a similar account of the incident.
Another passenger told the publication that one of the pilots stabbed another. Some Israeli passengers reportedly helped the crew to subdue the attacker.
Another passenger on the flight, Miriam, told Channel 15 that passengers heard shouting during the flight.
When the cockpit door was opened, there was blood inside. According to her, one of the pilots was struck with a folding knife. The passengers, together with the crew, intervened in the fight and stopped it. After that, the plane made an emergency landing.
Miriam said that at one point the passengers thought they would not make it out alive.
The Steep Fall
The FlightRadar24 data showed that around two and a half hours after departing from Dubai, the flight abruptly descended from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet within a minute before making an erratic circle close to the Jordanian border.
The flight sent a "squawk code" of 7700, a general international emergency signal, as it made a U-turn over the Jordan-Saudi Arabia border.
The pilots reportedly activated the hijack code while fighting. Another report claimed the pilot tried to commit suicide and crash the plane with him.
As the plane flew over Saudi Arabia, it also briefly issued a code 7500, meaning a hijacking or unlawful interference. The pilots reportedly activated the hijack code while fighting. An unconfirmed report also claimed the pilot tried to commit suicide and crash the plane with him.
Citing a regional official who was briefed on the incident, the Associated Press reported that a fight broke out in the cockpit and apparently involved pilots.
It wasn't immediately clear what had caused the fight, the official said.
An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post a "major disaster was narrowly avoided" amid unconfirmed reports claiming a pilot attempted to hijack the plane with the intention of crashing it into the ground.
Additional flight crew, reportedly with the help of passengers on board, managed to subdue the pilot and bring him under control.
What Israel Said
An official confirmed that Israel had scrambled warplanes, fearing a hijacking of a plane carrying dozens of its citizens. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been warned in recent days of unspecified, escalated security threats.
Netanyahu's office later said the situation was under control and Israel was working to bring the passengers home.
Emergency landings for personnel reasons are rare yet not unheard of. In 2022, two Air France pilots were suspended after fighting in the cockpit on a Geneva-Paris flight, though it did not have to be diverted and landed as planned.
Israelis were targeted in a string of hijackings and aeroplane attacks by Palestinian militants in the 1960s and 1970s. Israel has not experienced a hijacking in decades but maintains some of the strictest airport security in the world, including often invasive check-in procedures for Israel-bound flights.
What the Airline Said
FlyDubai later confirmed that flight FZ 1073 en route to Ben Gurion experienced an incident and landed safely in Tabuk on Wednesday.
"Our teams are working closely with the relevant authorities," the carrier said. "Further updates will be issued as additional confirmed details become available."
FlyDubai is the lower-cost sister carrier of Emirates Airlines. The UAE has become a popular vacation destination for Israeli tourists since the two countries normalised ties in 2020.
The low-cost carrier's fleet relies entirely on variants of the 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle aircraft that is widely used by airlines around the world. It has nearly 100 planes, including 69 of the Max 8 variant.
Dubai International Airport, where the plane took off from, is by far the Middle East's busiest airport and the world's largest in terms of international travel. It handled a record 95.2 million passengers last year.
Commercial flights have been operating between Israel and the United Arab Emirates since the countries normalised ties in 2020.
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