International
oi-Ashish Rana
Fresh questions have emerged over aviation security after an Omani co-pilot allegedly tried to seize control of a FlyDubai aircraft bound for Tel Aviv, despite authorities having shared the flight’s passenger and crew details with Israel before departure.
An Omani co-pilot attempted to crash a FlyDubai flight bound for Tel Aviv, raising security questions about his clearance despite prior extremist concerns. While the UAE shared crew data with Israel, Israeli agencies reportedly dispute vetting responsibility for the flight.
The incident has prompted scrutiny of the security checks that allowed the pilot to board and operate the flight. Officials said the co-pilot had previously been barred from flying in Oman because of concerns over his extremist views.
Investigators are also examining how an Omani citizen was cleared to fly an aircraft carrying Israeli passengers to Tel Aviv, despite Oman having no diplomatic relations with Israel.
Co-Pilot Allegedly Tried To Crash Plane
The UAE, which is leading the investigation, said the co-pilot attacked the flight’s captain with the cockpit’s crash axe and tried to take control of the plummeting plane in a “terrorist attack” on Wednesday.
His actions nearly crashed the flight with 182 people on board before the Indian captain managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and others to rush in and subdue the attacker.
Israel Had No Red Flags On Passengers
The regional officials said Emirati authorities had shared information about the passengers and crew, including their nationalities.
Israel hadn’t raised red flags on any passenger or member of the crew, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to reporters about the probe.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, said the Transportation Ministry is responsible for vetting passenger lists from foreign flights.
Israel Agencies Blame Each Other
Transportation Minister Miri Regev told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan that the security agencies are responsible for flight security and that her ministry wasn’t given a list of passengers or any warnings.
Sharing the list is standard aviation procedure. But the head of aviation security at the Transportation Ministry, Dvir Rubenstien, told Army Radio that the ministry relies on local security checks and does not have the tools or the ability to run checks on each passenger on every flight.
Netanyahu Points To Existing Agreements
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has long-standing agreements with foreign carriers to keep pilots from flying into the country if they are citizens of nations that don’t maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.
Australian police said Sunday that counterterrorism investigators were looking into the attacker’s possible connections to Australia.
The passengers who halted the attack and helped regain control of the aircraft have been hailed as heroes in Israel.
Political Opposition Targets Netanyahu Government
But as the initial euphoria of the rescue has subsided, officials have begun to raise difficult questions and trade accusations about the security blunders that could have led to a major disaster.
Ahead of the elections at the end of the month, some opposition candidates have seized on the security failures to highlight what they perceive as negligence on the part of Netanyahu and his supporters.
Transportation Minister Regev is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and a staunch supporter.
“This is exactly what system collapse looks like,” Yair Golan, head of the opposition Democrats party, wrote on X. “A transportation minister who completely abandons our skies, and a prime minister who abandons national security.”
Questions Over FlyDubai’s Background Checks
It also remains unclear how FlyDubai, a low-cost Emirati airline that operates flights between Israel and the UAE, had failed to identify the Omani pilot as a security risk.
Philip Baum, a visiting professor of aviation security at Coventry University in England who wrote a book about aircraft hijackings and bombings, said background check systems differ from country to country and there are limits on what types of information can be shared.
“In terms of aviation security itself, obviously we want to have as robust background checks as possible. But there are huge limitations on doing background checks in any case, especially in cross-border checks,” he said.
