Saudi Arabia Leads Technical Probe Into Flydubai Incident

An investigation into an unusual incident on a Flydubai flight from Dubai to Israel is being conducted by multiple authorities, with the Saudi National Center for Transportation Safety (NTSC) playing a central role. The NTSC announced that its safety investigation team has begun collecting information and evidence regarding flight FZ1073, which made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, to determine the circumstances that led to the aircraft deviating from its course.

The Saudis have a clear advantage in the technical investigation because the plane landed on their territory, the crew received treatment there, and initial physical and operational evidence is readily available to local authorities. However, the NTSC is a professional body focused on investigating transportation accidents and incidents, not a police or intelligence agency. Its mandate is to understand how a situation arose that endangered a passenger plane, examining events in the cockpit, crew actions, alerts, aircraft response, and potential improvements to prevent similar occurrences. This aligns with international aviation investigation principles, such as Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention, which states the purpose of safety investigations is to prevent future accidents, not to assign blame or legal responsibility.

Separate security and criminal investigations may run parallel to the NTSC's safety probe. The NTSC, while relatively new in its current unified form for all transportation modes, is officially designated for investigating serious safety events in aviation, road, rail, and maritime transport. It has legal personality and financial and administrative independence, tasked with identifying root causes and issuing safety recommendations. Although its board includes the Saudi Minister of Transport and Logistics and other senior officials, it operates similarly to bodies like the U.S. NTSB, conducting professional investigations separate from criminal inquiries.

Captain T. bin Abd Al-Rahman Al-Shammari, a former commercial pilot with extensive flight and safety experience, heads the NTSC. The General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) of the United Arab Emirates has also launched its own investigation, examining both operational and security aspects, and officially confirmed the incident as a "security event" in which some crew members were injured. As Flydubai is an Emirati operator and the aircraft is registered in the UAE, the GCAA possesses critical data on the crew, training, company procedures, and operational history.

Under ICAO rules, multiple countries can participate in international aviation incident investigations, including the country of occurrence, registration, and operator. Information sharing between Saudi Arabia and the UAE will be crucial for a complete picture. While the Saudi report may be vital for understanding the events, it may not definitively answer Israel's primary concern: whether the incident was an act of terrorism and the co-pilot's motive. The Saudi investigation is expected to clarify what happened in the cockpit, how the situation was controlled, why the plane lost altitude, and whether any failures could have been prevented. Israel is involved in the security aspects and will exchange information with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but there is no public confirmation of Israel's official inclusion in the technical investigation team, possibly due to public sensitivity regarding cooperation with Israel.