Dammam airport hit as Riyadh attack death toll reaches 13

Two of Saudi Arabia's main airports were attacked within two days, and the second one was still being assessed when the news went out. Simple Flying reports that King Fahd International Airport in Dammam was hit on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026, the same weekend that the death toll from a strike on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport climbed to 13.

What is confirmed so far

Simple Flying, citing Reuters, reports that Saudi Arabia's civil aviation authority confirmed the Dammam incident late Sunday and said crews were assessing damage and inspecting the site for safety. **Reported:** an eyewitness told Reuters a projectile came down on the tarmac near several parked aircraft at about 8:30 p.m. local time and set off a fire. The plane that witness was aboard went back to its gate, and passengers were told to disembark and leave the airport.

Simple Flying says the full extent of the damage at Dammam is not yet known, and that the airport authority did not respond to its request for comment before publication. Flight-tracking data showed delays and cancellations on arrivals and departures that evening, which points to an immediate hit to operations.

Dammam matters beyond its own region. It is Saudi Arabia's third-largest airport and the main gateway for the Eastern Province, the country's oil-producing heartland, so a long shutdown would touch domestic connections and international services tied to the energy business.

The Houthis claimed responsibility for the Dammam attack as well as the Riyadh strike and attacks on Saudi Aramco facilities. Saudi authorities separately reported intercepting a drone in the Eastern Province, and the available information does not establish whether it was the same projectile involved at the airport.

Riyadh, hit three times in a week

Simple Flying, citing Reuters, reports that 13 people were killed and more than 300 injured in Saturday's strike on King Khalid International Airport, making it among the deadliest attacks inside the kingdom in recent years. India's embassy in Riyadh said a citizen who had been hurt in the strike later died, raising the toll from 12. The airport stayed closed on Sunday.

The same report says the Riyadh airport had been targeted three times in a week, with two earlier incidents killing four people between them. One of those destroyed an Airbus A320 belonging to Saudia that was parked on the tarmac. **Reported:** a strike on Terminal 4 started a fire and injured an unspecified number of people.

Al Jazeera's analysis, cited in the report, notes that the Houthis have fired ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones, and that mixing weapon types makes interception harder even for a country with advanced air defenses.

Riyadh's main airport stayed closed on Sunday, and the damage assessment at Dammam was still underway.

What it means for your next trip

• Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport remained shut on Sunday, with flights diverted, according to Al Jazeera.
• Dammam saw delays and cancellations the evening of the attack, based on flight-tracking data.
• Neither the carriers nor the Saudi civil aviation authority has published a timeline for normal service. Simple Flying says further safety assessments and official operational updates will decide that.

If you hold a ticket through either airport, the reporting gives you one useful signal: nobody has said when operations resume, so a connection booked for the coming days is a gamble rather than a plan. Simple Flying reports that the German economy minister, Katherina Reiche, had her return to Berlin thrown into doubt by the Riyadh closure. She has a government staff. You have a booking confirmation and a phone.

An international energy conference went ahead in Riyadh despite the disruption, which tells you how quickly business there adapts.

Two airports hit in a single weekend is not a scheduling story. The reporting describes a civilian aviation network inside range of missiles and drones, with no published answer yet on how that gets fixed. Our read: what decides your trip is the operational update from the airlines and the Saudi civil aviation authority, not the political one, and neither had given a date when this report went out.

• airport security
• Dammam
• flight disruption
• Houthis
• Riyadh
• Saudi Arabia