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A Flydubai passenger plane flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after an alert initially raised fears that the aircraft had been hijacked.
The warning triggered a major security response. Israeli fighter jets were scrambled, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened urgent consultations with senior security officials as authorities tried to establish what was happening aboard the aircraft.
The plane landed safely at Tabuk, an airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia that serves both civilian and military flights. Everyone aboard was reported safe.
Flight-tracking reports said the aircraft first transmitted code 7700, indicating a general emergency, and later code 7500, the international signal used to warn of a possible hijacking or unlawful interference.
That sequence immediately set off alarm bells, particularly given the heightened security tension across the Middle East. However, Israeli authorities later said the incident was not believed to have been a hijacking.
Israeli media and a regional official briefed on the incident said an altercation apparently broke out between the two pilots. What caused the reported dispute, and how it escalated to the point of an emergency diversion, remained unclear.
The cockpit confrontation has not yet been fully detailed by the airline, and the circumstances remain under investigation. For now, the extraordinary claim that two pilots were involved in a mid-air dispute should be treated as a report rather than an established finding.
The flight was travelling along one of the region’s most politically sensitive commercial routes. Direct air services between Israel and the United Arab Emirates began after the two countries established relations in 2020.
For a tense few minutes on Wednesday, however, an emergency code was enough to put fighter jets in the air and governments on alert. What first looked like a possible regional security incident ended with a safe landing, but also with serious questions about what happened behind the cockpit door.
*Source: Reuters
