A flight connecting Dubai to Tel Aviv triggered a major security alert this Wednesday after abruptly changing course over the Gulf and losing contact with air traffic control for several tense minutes, according to multiple Israeli media outlets. The aircraft, originally bound for Ben Gurion Airport, was redirected into Saudi airspace, briefly raising fears of a possible hijacking.
Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 and the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth were among the first outlets to report the incident, saying a flight that had taken off from Dubai and was headed to Tel Aviv had changed course toward Saudi Arabia. The newspaper Maariv added that the diversion followed a loss of radio contact with the aircraft, prompting Israel’s security services and military to open an investigation into what had happened.
According to the Israeli press, the possibility of an unlawful takeover of the aircraft was seriously considered at one point, serious enough that the Israeli air force reportedly scrambled fighter jets toward the plane’s position. Data from flight-tracking platform FlightRadar, which identified the aircraft under flight code FZ109373, showed it squawking transponder code 7700, signaling a general emergency, before briefly switching to code 7500, the code reserved for cases of unlawful interference on board and used by crews to silently signal a possible hijacking in progress.
Moments later, the aircraft reverted to broadcasting only the general emergency code, and the reason for the brief switch has not been clarified. FlightRadar stated that no official confirmation was available, as of this writing, regarding the exact nature of the situation on board. The latest navigational data placed the aircraft on approach toward the Saudi city of Tabuk.
The episode unfolds against a tense regional backdrop, with civil aviation over the Gulf and the Red Sea corridor already under heightened scrutiny amid recurring drone attacks and incidents targeting commercial shipping and air traffic. Even a brief switch to code 7500 is typically enough to mobilize an airport’s entire security apparatus, given how rarely that signal is used outside a genuine emergency. Neither the airline involved nor Saudi or Emirati authorities had, at the time of publication, issued an official statement clarifying the exact circumstances. The incident remains shrouded in uncertainty, and further details are expected in the coming hours that could determine whether the anomaly stemmed from a technical fault, a cockpit error, or a more serious security breach requiring an official accounting from the parties involved.
