Not the first time: When a Flydubai plane landed in Saudi Arabia instead of Israel

Another dramatic incident involving a Flydubai plane en route to Israel that landed in Saudi Arabia. This time, about a year ago, a company plane landed in Riyadh after an Israeli passenger suffered a stroke. Dozens of Israelis on board remained on Saudi soil for hours, without information or reception, until the plane took off again for Israel.

The dramatic incident on the Flydubai flight heading to Israel is not the first. About a year ago, on September 24, 2025, a company plane, flight FZ1125, took off from Dubai to Ben Gurion Airport with about 80 passengers. During the flight, an Israeli passenger suffered a stroke, and the pilots diverted the plane to land in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities, despite the lack of diplomatic relations with Israel, approved the landing. Saudi medical teams treated the passenger, who was transferred to a local hospital. The Israeli Foreign Ministry stated that Saudi Arabia provided assistance in accordance with international aviation conventions. For the Israeli passengers, the landing raised concerns. Some family members in Israel tracked the plane's location and discovered it was in Saudi Arabia, without knowing why. One passenger's mother feared the plane had been hijacked. The passengers remained without information or reception for hours. One passenger recounted that the crew seemed more stressed than the passengers. The plane stayed in Riyadh for about three hours, and after treating the ill passenger, took off again for Israel. The previous incident ended without a security event. Even earlier, in August 2023, an Air Seychelles plane with more than 120 Israelis landed in Jeddah due to a technical malfunction, and the passengers spent the night there.