TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Authorities in the United Arab Emirates shared with Israel a list of passengers and crew ahead of the FlyDubai flight on which a pilot attempted to seize control of the Israel-bound aircraft and crash it, regional officials said Sunday, raising new questions over how the attacker evaded detection.
While the investigation continues, preliminary details about the incident 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 also remains 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.
The United Arab Emirates, which is leading the investigation, said the co-pilot attacked the flight's captain with the cockpit’s crash ax and tried to take control of the plummeting plane in a “terrorist attack” 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 subdued the attacker.
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 authorized to speak to reporters about the probe.
The passengers who halted the attack and helped regain control of the aircraft have been hailed as heroes in Israel.
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 wasn’t given a list of passengers or any warnings.
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.
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.
