Shin Bet warned of UAE flight gaps before Fly Dubai incident

Only months before the drama in the skies, the head of the Shin Bet, David Zinni, repeatedly warned that the security envelope provided on flights arriving from the United Arab Emirates was insufficient and left serious security gaps. N12 reported this Wednesday evening.

According to the report by Amit Segal, these warnings led in recent weeks to sharp arguments and considerable tension between the Shin Bet and Israeli airlines, after the agency decided to impose a blanket ban on Israeli carrier flights from the Emirates due to stringent security considerations.

The report also disclosed that parallel to the revelation of the early warnings, Israel is now investigating a serious suspicion that the co-pilot on the aircraft planned to seize control of the plane while it was in Jordanian airspace, with the intention of descending rapidly and crashing it at high speed inside Israeli territory. Though the theory is being examined with great seriousness by security officials, the security establishment clarifies that this remains a central line of investigation but not yet a final conclusion.

Security officials point to a direct connection between the security requirements set by Rosh Shin Bet Zinni and the current incident, since a tight security envelope as he sought to impose could have helped thwart the attempted attack in advance. However, the establishment clarified the division of responsibility: the Shin Bet is responsible for securing flights of Israeli carriers only, while the Mossad is the agency charged with thwarting threats on flights of foreign airlines.

In the background, it should be noted that despite intelligence agencies holding hot warnings of a dramatic rise in motivation to carry out attacks in aviation, the main concerns focused on scenarios of missile fire toward aircraft or attacks related to infrastructure at airports. A terror scenario in which a pilot attempts to seize control of an aircraft and crash it into Israeli territory did not come up in any advance security discussion by any agency.

Aircraft stranded on runway | Archive (Photo: Social media under Section 27a)

As will be recalled, already last July the Shin Bet notified Israeli airlines; El Al, Arkia and Israir, of a ban on landing in Dubai, which was later extended through the end of October. The decision was made in light of the high security tension in the Middle East and the fear of escalation with Iran. However, the restriction applied only to Israeli carriers, while foreign airlines, including Fly Dubai, continued to operate as usual with some 10 daily flights on the route between Tel Aviv and Dubai.

In the security establishment and the Israel Airports Authority, a thorough examination is now underway into how official approval was given for a pilot of Omani origin to arrive in Israel, and whether the approval process was carried out according to the stringent procedures of the Airports Authority. Due to the high geopolitical sensitivity surrounding relations with Middle Eastern countries, and particularly Gulf states, every foreign aircrew member is required to undergo careful and individual security screening and vetting before being granted entry approval to Israeli airspace or landing clearance in the country.

Questions now arising in the establishment: Was this screening actually carried out in the current case? And if so, how was his arrival approved? On the other hand, if the full screening was not carried out, the question arises how such a failure was possible. The unusual incident caught the security leadership at peak readiness: at the height of the drama, the IDF Chief of Staff, the head of the Shin Bet and the head of the Mossad held an urgent telephone consultation to consolidate the intelligence and operational picture.

Following a joint situation assessment held by the Israel Police and the Shin Bet, it was decided that immediately upon the aircraft's landing in Israel, all passengers and crew members would be transferred to immediate interrogation by Shin Bet personnel, in order to decipher the full circumstances and build the complete picture surrounding the flight.

The rescue flight that took off from the airport in Saudi Arabia following the attempted attack on the Fly Dubai flight landed in Israel on Wednesday, with 174 passengers returning home to dozens of ambulances waiting at Ben Gurion Airport to provide medical treatment to those who would need it. Magen David Adom reported that after medical examinations it turned out that all passengers arrived home safely, except for one passenger who was evacuated to hospital with a chest injury. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was among those who greeted the returning passengers.