TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A plane carrying Israelis returning home from the Indian Ocean island nation of Seychelles made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday before flying back to Tel Aviv in what Israel hailed as a show of Washington’s efforts to achieve goodwill. The two countries establish official relations.
An Air Seychelles flight with 128 passengers was forced to land on Monday after an electrical failure. The Israeli foreign ministry said the passengers stayed overnight at an airport hotel in Jeddah before returning on another plane with the airline.
Passengers described a horrific time filled with the pungent burning smell in the cabin as the pilot said over the intercom that the plane would be forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, which has no air links or diplomatic ties with Israel.
Passengers said dozens of people were trapped on board and tensions rose as the plane idling on the tarmac while Israeli officials scrambled to figure out what to do. Soon, Saudi security forces escorted the Israelis to a hotel.
“It was very scary,” recalled passenger Mayama Stahl as she emerged from Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport late Tuesday with dozens of others, some of whom appeared to be overwhelmed by the throng of journalists who greeted them, Surprised photographer and party balloons. “But we were all given a warm welcome (by the Saudis). … We are happy to see that we are all well and safe.”
Passengers told The Associated Press that their experience in Jeddah was pleasant, with some Saudis even greeting them in Hebrew.
Tracking data shows that the Air Seychelles Airbus A320 (flight number HM22) was diverted to Jeddah over the Red Sea on Monday night. The airline did not respond to a request for comment.
Another Air Seychelles A320 flew from Dubai to Jeddah on Tuesday, picking up passengers and taking them to Tel Aviv. In 2022, Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on Israeli overflights during President Joe Biden’s visit to the kingdom.
Israel and Saudi Arabia do not have official ties, although they have developed strong but informal connections over recent years over their shared concerns about Iran’s growing influence in the region. After Israel and four Arab states signed normalization deals in 2020 under the former Trump administration, Biden has been working to strike a similar agreement with Saudi Arabia.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made an agreement with Saudi Arabia a major goal, seized on the incident to highlight the potential for improved ties.
“I greatly appreciate the warm attitude of the Saudi authorities to the Israeli passengers whose flight was in distress,” he said in a video recorded in Hebrew with Arabic subtitles, as he gestured toward a map of the region behind him. “I greatly appreciate the good neighborliness.”
There was no immediate reaction in Saudi Arabia.
A normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and wealthy Arab state, has the potential to reshape the region and boost Israel’s standing in historic ways. But brokering such a deal is a heavy lift as the kingdom has said it won’t officially recognize Israel before a resolution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Saudis are also apparently seeking defense guarantees and access to American nuclear technology.
Extracting any major concessions to the Palestinians from Israel will be difficult under Israel’s current government, which is made up of ultranationalists who support expanding Jewish settlements on land the Palestinians seek for a state and oppose Palestinian independence.
