Sep 30, 2026-Ninety minutes out of Dubai, somewhere over Jordan, the cockpit of a flydubai jet carrying 174 passengers to Tel Aviv erupted into violence. The Boeing 737 sent a hijacking alert, Israeli fighter jets scrambled, and the plane turned back and landed in Saudi Arabia, a country with no diplomatic relations with Israel. Among the passengers were 27 children.
Israeli officials say the two pilots got into a physical fight. One passenger described something more frightening. Yasmin Abu Kasis told Reuters that her daughter Miriam, who was aboard, heard screaming and saw a man with a knife put the pilot on the floor, with blood everywhere.
In the middle of Chol HaMoed Sukkot, the intermediate days of the Feast of Tabernacles, Israeli families spent a tense morning waiting for news of loved ones who had come down in the one country Israelis least expect to land.
Fighter jets scrambled
Flydubai Flight FZ1073 left Dubai at 7:05 a.m. Wednesday and was due at Ben Gurion Airport around 9:30. About 90 minutes into the flight, as it entered Jordanian airspace, the plane transmitted squawk code 7700, the international signal for a general emergency. Minutes later it switched to 7500, the code for unlawful interference, commonly used to signal a hijacking. The jet made a U-turn back into Saudi airspace, dropped to a lower altitude, sent the general emergency signal again, and landed at Tabuk airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia, according to the tracking site Flightradar24.
Israel treated it as a potential hijacking. The Israeli Air Force scrambled fighter jets. An Israeli security official told Ynet there was no definitive information about a hijacking, but that authorities could not establish contact with the pilot, which he called concerning. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz convened an urgent security consultation. IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir held a situational assessment with the Air Force commander. Police Commissioner Danny Levy said police were preparing for every scenario, and the Israel Police set up a joint command center with the other security agencies.
By mid-morning, the picture changed. The Prime Minister’s Office said the incident was not believed to be a hijacking and was under control. An Israeli official told Reuters, on condition of anonymity, that the pilots sent the emergency signals after a physical altercation with each other. CNN’s sources described a “violent incident” between the two pilots. It remains unclear whether either pilot sent the hijacking code on purpose.
Flydubai said only that the flight experienced an “incident” and landed safely in Tabuk, and that all passengers are safe and accounted for. The airline gave no further details, and neither flydubai nor Israeli officials have addressed the knife described by Miriam Abu Kasis.
Stranded in Saudi Arabia
The passengers, overwhelmingly Israeli, are now in a kingdom that has never recognized the Jewish state. Netanyahu’s office said all efforts are being made to bring them home. As of this writing, no one has said how or when that will happen.
It is the second time in a year that an Israel-bound flydubai jet has come down in Saudi Arabia. In September 2025, a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Riyadh after a passenger suffered a stroke. That plane was cleared to continue to Israel shortly afterward. The flydubai route between Dubai and Tel Aviv runs daily and is popular with Israelis, one of the most visible fruits of the Abraham Accords.
Tabuk carries its own history. The province lies in the region of ancient Midian, where Moses fled from Pharaoh and tended the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro. Some Bible researchers identify Jabal al-Lawz, a mountain in Tabuk Province, as the true Mount Sinai.
A hijacking code, a passenger’s account of a knife and blood in the cockpit, fighter jets in the air, and 174 people landing in a country with no ties to Israel during the festival of divine shelter: every piece of this story pointed toward disaster. The plane landed safely. The children are accounted for. The pilots failed, and the Guardian of Israel kept watch.
