A flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after the crew issued a distress call, with the injured captain and co-pilot taken to hospital, Tabuk Airport and the airline have said.
The airline said the flight experienced an incident en route and landed safely at Tabuk Airport. It added that its teams are working with Saudi authorities and further updates would be issued as more confirmed details become available. “All passengers are safe and accounted for,” it said.
Tabuk Airport said air-traffic control received a distress call from the flight requesting an emergency landing at 8.44am.
An emergency was declared at the airport and preparations were made to assist the passenger plane, which landed at 9.45am.
The captain and co-pilot were injured and were taken to hospital, the airport said, without providing details on the nature or severity of their injuries.
One video broadcast widely on Israeli media, purportedly filmed on board, showed a passenger saying one of the pilots was seriously injured and the other was slightly hurt, after one had been stabbed.
The airport said assistance was provided to passengers in the terminal and it was co-ordinating with flydubai to arrange a replacement aircraft.
After departing Dubai International Airport, the plane was diverted over Jordanian airspace towards Saudi Arabia, transmitting two emergency signals, flight-tracking website Flightradar24 said.
It descended from 33,000ft to 17,000ft within a minute, before circling near the Jordanian border.
The Boeing 737 transmitted another general emergency signal before landing at Tabuk Airport in north-western Saudi Arabia, flight-tracking data showed.
There was no immediate response from the General Authority of Civil Aviation in Saudi Arabia, a country that does not have official diplomatic relations with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held consultations “following concerns over an aviation incident”, his office said in a statement.
“The incident is under control and all measures are now being implemented to safely return the Israeli passengers to Israel,” the office said, confirming hijacking had been ruled out. The Israeli army said it was conducting a “situational assessment”.
Israel's Mossad and the Shin Bet are involved in the investigations, a source told The National.
An Israeli passenger identified as Adam told Channel 13 News some of the plane’s equipment had failed.
“I didn't see everything because I was sitting roughly in the middle of the plane,” he said. “We experienced a sudden shutdown, a loss of the plane's electrical system, the multimedia system, everything. Then there were screams: 'Stabbings, stabbings, blood, blood.'”
Dalia Shpigel, another passenger on the flight, told Haaretz that about an hour before landing, passengers felt “the plane had gone out of control and was beginning to dive, with very unusual jolts”.
“We realised that something very unusual was happening and suddenly there were terrible screams throughout the plane,” she said.
Flydubai operates daily flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv.
The news quickly became politicised in Israel, with members of the opposition accusing Mr Netanyahu’s allies of trying to exploit the incident before next month's election.
Mr Netanyahu was widely criticised for issuing a warning on Tuesday that there were signs Israel’s enemies were preparing for an attack, without providing details.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, who last night attended a security briefing with Mr Netanyahu after his surprise warning, said “nothing that even resembles this morning's plane incident appeared in last night's security update with the Prime Minister. Not similar, not reminiscent, not even hinted at.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s National Security Minister, called for more military action against the nation's enemies.
