by Jonathan Sacerdoti, Spectator
Image: Wikimedia Creative Commons
This morning a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv appears to have been hijacked by its own co-pilot. It ended with the plane on the ground in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, and all 174 passengers alive, among them 27 children and many Israelis. Very little has been officially confirmed. But what we do know points to a potentially massive disaster that was averted, thanks to the bravery of Israeli passengers and members of the crew.
Flight FZ1073, a Boeing 737, left Dubai just after 7 a.m. local time this morning, heading for Ben Gurion Airport. It’s one of the everyday routes that have linked Israel and the Gulf in recent years.
About two hours into the flight, while cruising at around 34,000 feet over northwestern Saudi Arabia, the plane suddenly dropped about 17,000 feet. Its altitude and speed kept changing before it settled at around 15,000 feet. The plane’s transponder first broadcast 7700, the general emergency code. Then, briefly, it switched to 7500, the international code for unlawful interference, which in plain terms means a hijacking. It went back to 7700 before landing. That brief 7500 signal was enough to set off an Israeli military response. The Israeli Air Force scrambled fighter jets, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held urgent consultations with the Defence Minister Israel Katz.
At that stage even Israeli officials didn’t know what they were dealing with. A security official told the news outlet Ynet there was no definitive information about a hijacking and that they couldn’t make contact with the pilot.