Israeli Lawmakers Demand Probe Into Foreign Aviation Security Failures

Members of Knesset Efrat Reiten, Naama Lazimi, and Ram Ben Barak have formally requested that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara launch a comprehensive investigation into alleged failures in the security and oversight of foreign aviation.

Their demand follows an attempted attack on a Flydubai flight, where crucial information about a co-pilot's identity and nationality was reportedly available to Israeli authorities prior to the flight but was not acted upon. Lazimi specifically called for the findings of an inquiry to be presented to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in a closed session by October 18, with a report on the security breaches due within a week. She also requested a legal opinion clarifying the responsibilities of various bodies and the establishment of a permanent mechanism to monitor foreign aircrews.

The lawmakers argue that despite professional warnings from the Transportation Ministry about insufficient resources, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transportation Minister Miri Regev shifted the responsibility for ongoing oversight of foreign flights to the ministry. The Transportation Ministry disputes this, stating the change pertained to chartered flights for Israeli companies, not regular foreign airline flights like Flydubai. The ministry maintains that its security department has been responsible for incoming foreign aviation security for decades but lacks the intelligence-gathering tools for background checks on foreign crews, asserting that such checks are the purview of intelligence agencies.

Questions remain about whether the existing government system, established by a 2023 law and managed by the National Center for Passenger Data Analysis (MALAN) under the Tax Authority, was adequately utilized. This system collects data on passengers and crew, including names and nationalities, for purposes like counter-terrorism and aviation security. The dispute centers on which entity was responsible for identifying the co-pilot's Omani citizenship and flagging it before the flight, and whether the Transportation Ministry's security wing, officially tasked with "security assessment of foreign flights," used its access to MALAN data effectively.

Flydubai reportedly received explicit instructions and committed to conducting necessary background checks, claiming to have implemented national restrictions in its crew scheduling system. However, the enforcement of this commitment and the Israeli oversight mechanism remain unclear. The lawmakers contend that despite a legal framework for data collection and analysis, the intelligence gathered was not acted upon, and the averted disaster was due to the quick thinking of the flight crew and passengers, not state security mechanisms. The issue of responsibility for foreign aviation security was also highlighted in a May 2024 report by the State Comptroller, which recommended a review of international aviation security and the division of responsibilities among agencies, noting that some relevant government decisions dated back to the 1970s.