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A FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Israel was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia Wednesday, briefly raising concerns about a possible hijacking and prompting Israel to scramble fighter jets.
Israeli media outlets, citing security officials, said the incident stemmed from a feud between the commercial plane’s two pilots and that everyone on board was safe after it landed in Tabuk, where there is a civilian airport adjacent to a Saudi military base.
The Jerusalem Post reported that one pilot tried to hijack the plane but was subdued by other members of the flight crew and passengers, citing an unnamed Israeli official who told the newspaper that a “major disaster was narrowly avoided.” The official told the paper that during the altercation, the plane dropped around 13,000 feet.
Israeli sources told the Post that the would-be hijacker was an Omani national. There was no immediate confirmation of the details from Israeli or Saudi officials.
The crew of FlyDubai flight 1073, a Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, transmitted an emergency alert shortly after takeoff on Wednesday, according to publicly available flight tracking information.
A regional official briefed on the incident told the Associated Press a fight broke out in the cockpit apparently involving the pilots, but the official did not say what had caused the altercation. The AP cited a second official confirming that Israel had scrambled warplanes, fearing a possible hijacking of the plane carrying dozens of Israeli citizens.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned in recent days of unspecified, escalating security threats to Israel and its interests.
Netanyahu’s office later issued a statement saying the situation was under control and Israel was working to bring the passengers home.
Emergency landings for personnel reasons are rare but not unheard of. In 2022, two Air France pilots were suspended after fighting in the cockpit on a Geneva-to-Paris flight, though the plane landed as scheduled in the French capital.
FlyDubai is the lower-cost sister carrier of the United Arab Emirates state-owned flagship carrier Emirates airlines. The UAE has become a popular vacation destination for Israeli tourists since the two nations normalized ties in 2020.
Israel has not experienced a plane hijacking in decades, but it maintains some of the strictest airport security in the world.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee posted about the incident Wednesday on X, saying: “Well this had everyone in the Middle East (esp Israel) on FULL ALERT this morning.”
“Glad it wasn’t more serious,” he added, “but having pilots inflight detouring to ‘fist city’ not your ordinary experience.”
