Israel just scrambled jets over a Flydubai flight and it was pilots fighting

A Flydubai flight to Tel Aviv sent out a hijack signal this morning.

And the real cause? Two pilots, fighting in the cockpit.

Flight FZ1073 left Dubai at around 7:05 this morning. It was heading for Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv.

About 90 minutes in, the plane was over Jordan. It was flying at roughly 15,000 feet. That's well below normal cruising height. And it started turning around.

As it turned, the plane sent out squawk code 7700. That's the general emergency signal.

Then it sent code 7500. Every air traffic controller on Earth reads that one the same way. Unlawful interference. A possible hijacking.

So Israel's air force scrambled fighter jets toward the plane.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz held an urgent security consultation. Israel's police opened a joint command centre with other security agencies. Danny Levy, the Police Commissioner, held a situation assessment and says quote "we are preparing for every scenario".

An Israeli security official summed up the fear in the first few minutes, telling Ynet that there was no definite information about a hijacking, that the pilot had activated a distress signal, and that they could not reach the cockpit.

So that's Israeli security, in real time, saying they couldn't reach the cockpit. And they had no idea what was happening inside it.

The plane kept flying. It's a Boeing 737 MAX 8, registration A6-FKF.

Here's the twist. It didn't head back to Jordan. It didn't turn back to Dubai either. It changed course again, into Saudi Arabian airspace.

And it landed safely at Tabuk airport, in Saudi Arabia.

That's when the real explanation came out.

Israeli media, citing security sources, now report the emergency codes came from a physical fight between the two pilots. Not a hijacking. Not an outside threat. Not a passenger incident.

A fight at the front of the plane set off the same alarm the world uses for a hijacking in progress.

So think about what that actually triggered. Fighter jets in the air. The Prime Minister in an emergency meeting. A police command centre standing up.

All of it, for two pilots fighting each other.

Flydubai has not put out an official statement on what happened, or why the pilots clashed. Some Israeli reporting has suggested the airline confirmed the fight. But no direct statement from Flydubai turns up anywhere. That claim hasn't been independently confirmed.

Even how many people were on board isn't settled. Ynet reports 174 passengers, including 27 children. Other Israeli outlets report different figures, and none of them agree on an exact number. Departure and arrival times differ slightly between outlets too.

Here's what we still don't know. Why the pilots fought. Whether anyone got hurt. What happened to the cockpit door. Who the pilots even are. And Flydubai's own account of any of it.

The plane was meant to land in Tel Aviv by around 9:30 this morning.

Instead, it's sitting on the ground in Saudi Arabia. And two pilots have some explaining to do.