Israel admits no foreign pilot checks amid scrutiny after flydubai cockpit attack

Israel’s Transportation Ministry has acknowledged that it does not conduct background checks on foreign pilots flying into the country, saying it cannot guarantee that flights operated by international airlines are completely safe. The admission has intensified scrutiny of Israel’s aviation security system after an Omani co-pilot allegedly attacked the Indian captain of a Tel Aviv-bound flydubai flight.

Transportation Minister Miri Regev told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan on Saturday that her ministry was not responsible for identifying foreign crew members or determining security threats.

“Those who are supposed to identify the crew are security officials. We are not security officials,” Regev said.

She added that decisions about the level of threat and whether flights should operate to particular destinations were the responsibility of security officials.

The ministry’s security division also acknowledged during a media briefing that it does not have officials stationed abroad to check individual crew members.

“We have no staff that checks every person there,” a representative of the division said, according to Israeli media reports.

The official added that “nothing is 100%” when it comes to security and said the ministry could not promise that a similar incident would never happen again. The division also said it could not give a figure for how many pilots from hostile states had landed in Israel and could not guarantee that flights operated by foreign airlines were completely secure.

Questions over Israel’s pilot ban

The disclosure comes amid reports that dozens of Omani pilots have flown to Tel Aviv on flydubai services in recent years, despite an Israeli restriction on pilots from countries considered unfriendly or without diplomatic relations with Israel.

Channel 12 reported that Israeli security authorities had failed to enforce the restriction. Oman does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and was not a signatory to the Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic ties between Israel and the UAE in 2020. The reported security arrangement bars pilots from countries that do not formally recognise Israel from operating flights into the country.

According to reports, Israel had effectively relied on foreign airlines to enforce the restriction. Channel 12 said the Shin Bet had not independently checked the origins of flydubai pilots, beyond reminding the airline about the requirement.

More recent reporting has raised further questions over the process. Haaretz reported that Israeli authorities had received the flydubai crew list in advance and that security sources said the Transportation Ministry and Mossad were supposed to check it.

The Jerusalem Post also reported that the accused co-pilot had previously landed at Ben-Gurion Airport, with Israeli officials currently relying on information from Saudi Arabia and the UAE because they had not yet been permitted to question him.

What happened aboard the flydubai flight

The security concerns stem from the incident involving flydubai flight FZ1073, which was travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

Indian Captain Smit Machchhar was seriously injured after his Omani co-pilot, identified as Hamam al-Hammami, attacked him inside the cockpit. UAE authorities later said the co-pilot used a crash axe and attempted to take control of the aircraft, describing the incident as an attempted terrorist act.

The attack caused the Boeing 737 to plunge by more than 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds. Passengers and crew members who heard the disturbance rushed towards the cockpit and helped overpower the co-pilot.

With Machchhar injured, a second pair of flydubai pilots who were travelling aboard the aircraft helped take control and safely diverted the plane to Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. The flight was carrying more than 170 passengers and crew.

The UAE is investigating the incident, including the circumstances surrounding the attack and its motive.

Fresh scrutiny of co-pilot’s background

The investigation has also raised questions about how al-Hammami was able to operate a commercial flight after reports that he had previously been barred from flying in Oman over concerns about extremist views.

The Associated Press reported that Omani authorities had previously grounded him amid concerns about extremist tendencies.

Those revelations have added to questions over both the airline’s recruitment procedures and Israel’s security checks for foreign crews operating flights into the country.

Reuters reported that Israel is considering tighter screening of pilots entering the country as authorities investigate how the Omani national was able to serve as co-pilot on an Israel-bound flight.

The case has therefore shifted attention beyond the cockpit attack itself, with investigators and officials now facing questions over whether existing rules were properly enforced and whether the gaps in pilot vetting could have been identified before the flight took off.