Alleged video of "screaming and crying during the Fly Dubai plane incident".. what is its truth?

- A video has spread on social media claiming to be related to the incident of diverting a flight belonging to "Fly Dubai" that was headed to Tel Aviv. The video has gained widespread circulation globally, being shared in multiple languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, and English.

The video, which was filmed from an airplane window, features the sound of screaming in the background. The claim is accompanied by a misleading description that says: "Screaming and crying: documentation from inside the plane that was headed from Dubai to Tel Aviv."

Upon visually analyzing the video, we found that its angle of capture indicates that the plane was about to land at Dubai Airport, which contradicts the fact that the plane was flying northwest of Saudi Arabia before issuing a "mayday" call to request landing at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk. Although the original version of the video has not been found yet, the results of the video examination using AI content verification tools leaned towards the scenes being real.

The Arabic news site Afaq News identified the direction of the plane by comparing the spatial evidence visible in the video with what satellite images and Google Maps show of Dubai Airport. A video published by travel blogger "snakesolidus" on his YouTube channel a year ago can also be seen, where the same evidence can be observed when the blogger was on a departing flight from Dubai Airport, starting from the 2:48 mark.

The video examination revealed that the sound heard in the background is taken from another clip of an incident involving a flight encountering turbulence over the Andes Mountains in Argentina. The sound is available in the background of a video documenting the flight incident over the Andes, on a TikTok account dated June 24, 2022.

The video is circulating concurrently with the emergency landing incident of a "Fly Dubai" plane at Tabuk Airport on Wednesday morning. A spokesperson for the company told Afaq News that the flight path, which was headed to Tel Aviv, was diverted and landed in Saudi Arabia due to a dispute that broke out in the cockpit.

The spokesperson added that the motive behind the incident is still unclear. The spokesperson stated that "the aircraft was successfully secured by the Fly Dubai crew members who were on board the flight."

He added that the company sent two replacement aircraft to Tabuk to assist the passengers and crew of the diverted flight, noting that an investigation into the incident has been opened. The spokesperson said: "At this early stage, the reasons and motives behind this event are still unknown and are subject to an official investigation," urging "all parties to refrain from making premature speculations until the authorities gather the facts."

Flight tracking data, which Afaq News reviewed, shows that the aircraft descended by 17,400 feet - from an altitude of 34,000 feet to about 16,600 feet - over northwestern Saudi Arabia in just over two minutes, then the aircraft sent a distress signal before landing in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, two Israeli sources told Afaq News that the co-pilot of the "Fly Dubai" flight may have attempted to hijack the plane to crash it or take hostages.