Authorities in the United Arab Emirates shared a list of passengers and crew with Israel ahead of the FlyDubai flight on which a pilot attempted to seize control of the Israel-bound aircraft and crash it, regional officials have confirmed. The news has raised questions over how the attacker evaded detection and managed to board the flight.
Security lapses revealed in preliminary investigation
Preliminary details about the incident released during the ongoing investigation have highlighted several major security lapses. Officials already have said the Omani co-pilot had been barred from flying by his own country because of concerns about his extremist views.
It is still unclear how a citizen of Oman, an Arab country that has no diplomatic relations with Israel, was allowed to fly a planeload of Israelis to Tel Aviv. According to the UAE, which is leading the investigation, 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.
Passenger information shared with Israel
The flight nearly crashed due to his actions 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. The regional officials said Emirati authorities had shared information about the passengers and crew, including their nationalities.
Officials, who have spoken on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to reporters about the probe, have said that Israel had not raised red flags on any passenger or member of the crew. The passengers who halted the attack and helped regain control of the aircraft have been hailed as heroes in Israel.
Questions over security responsibilities
But officials have begun to raise difficult questions and trade accusations about the security blunders that could have led to a major disaster. The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, said the Transportation Ministry is responsible for vetting passenger lists from foreign flights.
Transportation minister Miri Regev told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan that the security agencies are responsible for flight security and that her ministry was not given a list of passengers or any warnings. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 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 do not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.
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 the UK 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,” he said. “But there are huge limitations on doing background checks in any case, especially in cross-border checks.”
