Israel-bound Flydubai flight diverted to Saudi Arabia after emergency alert | News

The airline says the plane suffered an “incident” en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv and landed safely at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia.

A commercial flight from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Israel was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

The Flydubai plane transmitted an emergency alert shortly after takeoff on Wednesday, according to publicly available flight tracking information.

The airline said the plane “experienced an incident en route,” adding that it landed safely at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia, which also happens to be a military base, and that all passengers were safe.

Flight tracking data indicated it was a Boeing 737 Max 8.

According to data from the website Flightradar24, the plane suddenly lost altitude during the flight, going from nearly 34,000 feet (more than 10 km) at 05:21 GMT to less than 17,000 feet at 05:22 GMT.

The plane issued an “illegal interference” alert, apparently due to an altercation between the pilots on board, Israeli media reported, citing officials.

The pilot and co-pilot were admitted to hospital with injuries, Tabuk Airport said, adding that it was coordinating with Flydubai to find a replacement plane.

Israel said it was arranging the safe return of Israeli passengers from Saudi Arabia.

“The incident is under control and all measures are currently being deployed to return Israeli passengers safely to Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

Steep descent

Passengers on the plane told Israel’s Channel 12 by telephone that they heard screams coming from the front of the plane and heard the altercation between the pilots, and that the plane plunged sharply before the emergency landing.

At the time of writing the report, all passengers were on board the plane and there was a heavy presence of Saudi security forces nearby.

Yasmin Abukasis was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying that her daughter Miriam, who was among the passengers on the flight, told her that she had heard screaming and that a man holding a knife had forced one of the pilots to the ground and that there was blood everywhere.

“What we understand from the radar tracking of the flight is that two emergency signals were transmitted from the flight – the first was a general emergency signal and the second, a few minutes later, seemed to indicate some sort of illegal interference on the flight,” said Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Doha, Qatar.

“Tracking data also shows the plane plunged nearly 14,000 feet in 30 seconds during the incident – ​​a steep, steep descent that is said to have unnerved passengers.”

Later on Wednesday, Flightradar24 temporarily showed a second Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv diverting to Dubai, but then showed it continuing on its planned route to Israel.

Standardized links

Flydubai is a low-cost sister airline of Emirates airline. The United Arab Emirates has become a popular vacation destination for Israeli tourists since the two countries normalized relations in 2020.

Flydubai’s fleet is based entirely on variants of the 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle aircraft widely used by airlines around the world. It has nearly 100 aircraft, including 69 of the Max 8 variant.

The flight originated from Dubai Airport, the busiest airport in the Middle East and the largest in the world for international travel. It welcomed a record 95.2 million passengers last year.

This is not the first time that a flight between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has landed in Saudi Arabia. A Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Riyadh in September 2025 due to a medical incident, Israeli media reported at the time.