Flight FZ1073: How a Dubai–Tel Aviv jet triggered a hijack code and landed in Saudi Arabia

A Flydubai Boeing passenger flight bound from Dubai to Tel Aviv was forced to land in Saudi Arabia early on Wednesday after broadcasting a hijack alert, according to a timeline of the incident drawn from air traffic tracking data and statements by Israeli and Saudi officials. The aircraft, flight FZ1073, touched down at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk, a city in northwestern Saudi Arabia close to the Jordanian border, and was later cleared to return passengers to Israel.

Netanyahu's account

The most dramatic account of what unfolded in the cockpit came from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said in a video message released later in the day that the co-pilot stabbed the pilot and apparently attempted to crash the aircraft. According to Netanyahu, passengers and a crew member entered the cockpit and restrained the suspect. The exact time when the video was recorded or published was not immediately clear, and Israeli authorities said there has been no independent confirmation of a hijacking attempt.

Netanyahu also said the co-pilot, whom an Israeli official identified as a national of Oman, was arrested after the plane landed. The nationality of the detained individual has not been independently verified. Israel's Ministry of Transport said the incident would be examined in a joint investigation involving the defence establishment — a signal that authorities were treating the case as a matter of national security as well as aviation safety.

What the flight data shows

The clearest publicly available account of the flight's behaviour comes from Flightradar24, the flight-tracking service, which published a blog post on the incident. Flight FZ1073 departed Dubai at about 03:05 GMT and climbed to 34,000 feet, more than 10,000 metres above sea level, cruising well above the altitude at which the aircraft would later be seen manoeuvring.

At 05:21 GMT, roughly two hours into the flight, the aircraft began a deep descent. That was followed almost immediately by a sharp climb and then a second steep descent — an erratic pattern consistent with a cabin emergency in which control of the aircraft was disrupted rather than a planned step-down in flight level. By about 05:33 GMT, tracking data showed the jet flying at approximately 15,000 feet (4,572 metres), several thousand feet below its cruise altitude and at a speed and configuration that would have put it under time pressure.

Signals sent out

At 05:28 GMT, while flying near the border between Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the aircraft began transmitting the emergency transponder code 7700 — the internationally agreed code for a general emergency. Seven minutes later, at 05:35 GMT, the transponder changed to 7500, the code specifically reserved for unlawful interference with a flight, meaning a hijacking.

Immediately after the hijack code was set, the aircraft turned west, briefly entered Jordanian airspace and then turned back towards Saudi Arabia. That sequence matters for investigators: rather than continuing towards its Tel Aviv destination, the aircraft was routed towards Tabuk, suggesting that whoever was flying it — or who regained control of it — selected a diversion field in a country with which the airline maintains no regular route.

Distress call and landing

Air traffic controllers in Tabuk received a distress call from FZ1073 asking for an emergency landing at 05:44 GMT, a time Saudi authorities gave as 08:44 local time, consistent with the country's UTC+3 offset. As the aircraft approached the airport, its transponder switched back to 7700, indicating that the situation had been downgraded from unlawful interference to a general emergency.

Local Saudi media reported that the aircraft landed safely at Tabuk at about 06:45 GMT, and that two pilots were injured. Flightradar24 recorded the aircraft's final tracking signal at the airport at 06:58 GMT. Flydubai said the flight experienced an "incident", was diverted to Tabuk and landed safely, adding that all passengers were safe and accounted for. The UAE, the airline's home country, had not publicly commented on the circumstances of the incident as the timeline was compiled.

Politics around the flight

The diversion happened a day after Netanyahu warned that Israel had indications that its "enemies" might attempt attacks in the run-up to Israel's October 27 election, without specifying the nature of the threat. Later on September 29, at about 20:30 GMT, opposition leader Yair Lapid received a security briefing from the prime minister. Afterward Lapid said there was "no reason to put the public in a panic" and argued that security threats should be handled professionally rather than deployed as election messaging.

Lapid later rejected any attempt to link the Flydubai incident to that briefing. "Nothing even resembling this morning's plane incident appeared in the security briefing with the prime minister last night. Nothing similar, nothing reminiscent of it, not even a hint," he wrote on X, accusing government-aligned voices of seeking to exploit the incident for political purposes.

Return to Israel

By the afternoon of September 30, international news agency footage showed a second Flydubai aircraft — a rescue flight sent to collect the passengers of FZ1073 — arriving at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv at 15:34 GMT. Earlier reporting described passengers of the diverted flight arriving at Ben Gurion in an aircraft that had been sent to Saudi Arabia to retrieve them, with the Jerusalem Daily reporting that the flight was carrying Israelis. Images from Tzafria, south of Tel Aviv, showed an aircraft carrying passengers from an earlier diverted flight touching down on the same day.

The sequencing of the cockpit alert, the hijack code, the brief excursion into Jordanian airspace and the emergency landing in Tabuk has made the case the focus of intense scrutiny in Israel and the Gulf. Aviation observers note that the use of code 7500 — which is reserved for exactly this scenario and is rarely transmitted in commercial operations — indicates that whoever was at the controls believed authorities needed to be told the aircraft was being interfered with. Investigators are expected to examine cockpit voice recordings and the identities and travel histories of the crew, while the joint Israeli inquiry will look at whether the flight was an isolated criminal act or part of a wider plot. The timing, days before a closely fought election in a country on high alert, has ensured that the incident will be read both as a security question and as a political one.