Flydubai Flight to Tel Aviv Diverts to Saudi Arabia After Reported Cockpit Fight Between Pilots

A commercial flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an unscheduled landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after broadcasting emergency signals that briefly raised fears of a hijacking. Israeli officials later said the trigger appears to have been a physical altercation between the aircraft's two pilots, not an outside threat.

The flydubai aircraft touched down safely at Tabuk airport in north-western Saudi Arabia. The airline said the plane had experienced an incident while en route and that everyone on board was safe and accounted for. Reports put the number of passengers at roughly 175 to 180, many of them Israelis.

What the transponder showed

Publicly available flight-tracking data showed the jet first transmitting squawk code 7700, the general international emergency signal, and then switching to 7500, the code pilots use to indicate a hijacking or unlawful interference on board. The plane briefly dropped off some tracking sites before reappearing near Tabuk, where it landed after turning around over Saudi airspace.

The 7500 alert set off a rapid military response. Israel scrambled Air Force fighter jets toward the aircraft, and the country's army chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, convened an assessment with senior commanders, including the heads of the Air Force, operations and intelligence directorates. Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz held emergency consultations while the situation was still unclear.

A cockpit dispute, not a hijacking

Citing Israeli security sources, Israeli media soon reported that a hijacking had been ruled out and that the emergency stemmed from a fight between the pilots. A regional official briefed on the matter separately said a scuffle had broken out in the cockpit, though what sparked it was not immediately known. Netanyahu's office later said the situation was under control and that efforts were under way to bring the passengers back to Israel.

Neither flydubai nor Saudi authorities had publicly detailed the cause at the time of writing, and the airline said it would share more information later. Investigators are expected to examine how a disagreement between crew members escalated to the point of a hijack alert and a diversion into a third country.

Why the scare was taken so seriously

The timing amplified the alarm. Netanyahu had said shortly before the incident that Israel had indications its enemies might try to attack ahead of the country's upcoming general election, warning that Israel would respond anywhere and at any time. The wider region also remains tense amid the continuing US-Iran conflict, which has already disrupted air travel and led to fresh restrictions on Iranian carriers in Gulf states.

Flights between the UAE and Israel have operated since the two countries normalised relations in 2020, and the route has become popular with Israeli tourists. Flydubai is the low-cost sister airline of Emirates.

Cockpit confrontations serious enough to force a diversion are rare. One of the better-known recent cases involved two Air France pilots who were suspended in 2022 after coming to blows on a Geneva-Paris flight, though that aircraft continued to its destination as planned.

What happens next

The immediate priority is returning the stranded passengers to Israel. Beyond that, attention will turn to the two pilots, the airline's crew-management procedures and how authorities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel coordinate on an incident that, for a tense stretch of time, looked far more dangerous than it ultimately proved.

This is an original summary based on public reporting. See our editorial policy for how we source, write, and correct our stories.