Flydubai flight to Israel diverted to Saudi Arabia after emergency alert

Airline says plane experiences ‘incident’ en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv, lands safely at Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk airport.A commercial plane travelling from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to Israel has been 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.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4UAE bars Iranian airlines as US sanctions squeeze Iran’s aviation sectorlist 2 of 4UAE lifts all air traffic restrictions introduced since Iran warlist 3 of 4Airlines hike fares, cut millions of seats as Iran war drives up fuel costslist 4 of 4Dozens of aircraft, hundreds of buildings: US loss to Iran attacks revealedend of listThe airline confirmed that the plane “experienced an incident while en route”, adding that it landed safely at Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk airport, a civilian and military base in the kingdom, and all passengers are safe and accounted for.It said more details will be shared later.The incident that caused the plane to issue an “Unlawful interference” alert was apparently due to an altercation between the pilots on board the flight, Israeli media outlets reported, citing Israeli officials.It was not possible to immediately verify the reports.According to data from the Flightradar24 website, the aircraft suddenly lost altitude during the flight, dropping from nearly 34,000 feet at 05:21 GMT to less than 17,000 feet at 05:22 GMT.Meanwhile, Israel said it was organising the safe return of Israeli passengers from Saudi Arabia.“The incident is under control, and all measures are currently being deployed in order to return the Israeli passengers safely to Israel,” a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.Flight-tracking data indicated that the plane was a Boeing 737 Max 8.Emergency landings for personnel reasons are rare yet not unheard of. In 2022, two Air France pilots were suspended after fighting in the cockpit on a Geneva-Paris flight, though it did not have to be diverted and landed as planned.