Tel Aviv: The United Arab Emirates gave Israel a list of passengers and crew — including the pilots’ names and nationalities — before the FlyDubai flight in which a co‑pilot tried to seize the controls and crash the Israel‑bound plane, regional officials told the Associated Press on Sunday.
The disclosure has sharpened questions about how the attacker evaded detection despite the advance sharing of flight details.
As investigators piece together the timeline, early findings point to glaring gaps in screening and coordination. It is now confirmed that the Omani co‑pilot had been grounded by his home country over fears linked to extremist ideology. Yet it remains unexplained how a national of Oman — which does not recognise Israel — was cleared to fly a planeload of Israeli passengers into Tel Aviv.
The UAE, which is spearheading the probe, said the co‑pilot assaulted the captain with the cockpit’s emergency axe and attempted to seize the controls of the descending aircraft in what it termed a “terrorist attack” on Wednesday.
The plane, carrying 182 people, was brought back from the brink only after the Indian captain managed to unlock the cockpit door, enabling passengers and others to storm in and overpower the assailant.
Israel Raised No Objections
According to regional officials, Emirati authorities provided information on both passengers and crew, including their nationalities, before departure. “Israel hadn’t raised red flags on any passenger or member of the crew,” said the officials, who spoke on conditions of anonymity.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, stated that the Transportation Ministry bears responsibility for vetting passenger lists arriving on foreign flights. However, 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.”
While exchanging such lists is routine in civil aviation, 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.”
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 don’t maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.”
Meanwhile, Australian police said on Sunday that counter‑terrorism investigators were examining possible links between the attacker and Australia.
The passengers who intervened to stop the assault and helped restore control of the aircraft have been celebrated as heroes across Israel.
Questions Raised On Security Failures
As the initial wave of relief over the dramatic rescue has subsided, officials have begun posing difficult questions and exchanging accusations over the security lapses that nearly triggered a major tragedy.
With national elections due at the end of the month, some opposition leaders have used the incident to accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies of negligence. Transportation Minister Miri Regev, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and a close supporter, has faced sharp criticism.
“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.”
It is still not clear how FlyDubai, a low‑cost Emirati airline that operates regular flights between the UAE and Israel, failed to identify the Omani pilot as a security risk.
Philip Baum, a visiting professor of aviation security at Coventry University in England and author of a book on aircraft hijackings and bombings, said background‑check systems vary by country and there are limits on what information can be shared internationally.
“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.
