More than three hours on Saudi soil: Passengers on a FlyDubai flight described the tense hours they endured Wednesday night after their plane made an emergency landing in Riyadh due to a medical emergency.
At Ben Gurion Airport, Tali Gedasi of Rishon Lezion rushed to embrace her son Rom, who had been on the flight from Sri Lanka via Dubai.
Footage from the place in Saudi Arabia
(Video: Lior Sharon, Rom Gedasi )
“We wanted to know what was happening with Rom, and suddenly, on the ‘Find My Phone’ app, we saw Saudi Arabia. My heart sank,” she described. “I was terrified. I didn’t understand what happened. We started making calls, afraid the plane had been hijacked. We calmed down only when we heard from the media that it was a medical issue.”
Rom, reunited with his mother after landing, admitted it was a frightening experience. “It was scary, we were worried, but thank God everything is fine,” he said. “There was a man who had a stroke. I hope he’s okay. Doctors in hijabs came onto the plane.”
According to him, the 80 passengers on board, including dozens of Israelis, were kept waiting on the plane for three to four hours. “They gave us almost no information. We had no cell reception for hours, so we couldn’t contact anyone back home.”
Another passenger, Miri, described the ordeal as “an experience.” “Suddenly they told us we were landing in Saudi Arabia,” she recalled. “It was very frightening — after all, we don’t have relations with them. But all the Israelis stayed calm. The flight attendants were more nervous than we were. Thank God we’re home. The most important thing is the health of the passenger.”
Among the unexpected arrivals in Saudi Arabia was also a very young passenger: the infant son of Fatma from Deir Hanna, who was returning from a family vacation in Dubai. “The plane circled in the air before we landed,” she said, holding her baby in her arms. “It was completely crazy.”
The passenger who suffered a stroke was hospitalized in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia allowed the landing under the Chicago Convention, which obliges states to provide assistance to aircraft in distress, regardless of diplomatic ties. Similar cases have occurred before, with foreign planes making emergency landings in countries with no relations with Israel.