Israel had list of everyone on board FlyDubai flight, raised no red flags: Report
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Israel had list of everyone on board FlyDubai flight, raised no red flags: Report")
Officials say Israel did not show any concern about the list of passengers and crew on FlyDubai flight. Photograph: (AFP)
A list of every passenger and crew on board the FlyDubai flight was shared with Israel, but no one raised any concerns about anyone, UAE officials have reportedly said. Israeli authorities have meanwhile said they cannot vet everyone on every flight.
Officials in the United Arab Emirates have said that authorities shared details of passengers and crew on the FlyDubai aircraft with Israel, but it raised no concern about any of them. Associated Press reported that regional UAE officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the names and nationalities of everyone on the plane were sent to Israel.
UAE is leading the investigation into the attempted hijacking of the FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. The plane with 182 passengers and crew witnessed a major scare when the co-pilot attacked the flight's captain with an axe, which caused the plane to plummet by several feet. It went down nearly 14,000–16,000 feet in under a minute before control was regained. The captain managed to open the cockpit door and raise an alarm, after which the off-duty pilots steadied the plane, while passengers helped subdue the attacker.
How was an Omani pilot allowed on flight?
Preliminary details from the investigation have revealed several major security lapses. The biggest point under the scanner is how an Omani co-pilot was allowed to be on the flight. Officials have said that his own country had barred him from flying because of his extremist views. Further, having a citizen of Oman, an Arab country with no diplomatic relations with Israel, flying a plane full of Israelis to Tel Aviv also remains a mystery.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has long-standing agreements with foreign carriers under which pilots who are citizens of nations that don’t maintain diplomatic relations with Israel are not allowed to fly into the country. Netanyahu has ordered the head of the National Security Council to have "all security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel" reviewed.
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Sharing lists of passengers and crew is a regular practice. But it is unclear whether each and every person is vetted by authorities. The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, said the Transportation Ministry is responsible for this. Meanwhile, Transportation Minister Miri Regev said on X that her ministry did not receive a list of passengers or any warnings.
Dvir Rubenstien, the head of aviation security at the Transportation Ministry, told Army Radio that it does not have the means to run checks on each passenger on every flight, and it relies on local security checks for this.
What Oman said about the attacker co-pilot
The Sultanate of Oman said in an official statement on Monday that the co-pilot was "an Omani national, born in the UAE, whose mother is of Syrian origin. He spent a significant part of his life outside Oman." It added, "He worked for a limited period as a trainee at an Omani airline. However, when the Omani authorities identified, at an early stage, his interest in accessing extremist websites on the internet, he was prevented from working in the aviation sector."
Oman also clarified that the "Omani authorities were not asked to provide any information before his employment. Had such information been requested, Oman would have shared the information available on him, as it is doing now."
