DUBAI — Authorities in the United Arab Emirates had shared information about the passengers and crew, including their nationalities, ahead of the FlyDubai flight, which a pilot allegedly attempted to seize control and crash, regional officials said on Sunday, raising new questions over how the attacker was allowed on the Tel Aviv-bound aircraft.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 Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, said the Transportation Ministry is responsible for vetting passenger lists from foreign flights. Transportation Minister Miri Regev on X said the security agencies are responsible for flight security and that her ministry wasn’t given a list of passengers or any warnings.Preliminary investigations have pointed to a series of security lapses. Officials have said the Omani co-pilot had been barred from flying by his own country because of concerns about his extremist views. It is also unclear how an Omani citizen, from a country that has no diplomatic relations with Israel, was allowed to fly a plane carrying Israelis to Tel Aviv.Israeli 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.Sharing the list is standard aviation procedure. But 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.Netanyahu later told the head of the National Security Council to appoint an examiner to review “all security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel.”With the investigation into the FlyDubai incident underway, preliminary details have highlighted several major security lapses. The UAE, 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” on 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 subdue the attacker.The passengers who halted the attack and helped regain control of the aircraft have been hailed as heroes in Israel.But as the initial euphoria of the rescue has subsided, officials have begun to raise difficult questions and trade accusations about the security blunders that could have led to a major disaster.Ahead of the elections at the end of the month, some opposition candidates have seized on the security failures to highlight what they perceive as negligence on the part of Netanyahu and his supporters. Transportation Minister Regev is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and a staunch supporter.“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 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.DUBAI — Authorities in the United Arab Emirates had shared information about the passengers and crew, including their nationalities, ahead of the FlyDubai flight, which a pilot allegedly attempted to seize control and crash, regional officials said on Sunday, raising new questions over how the attacker was allowed on the Tel Aviv-bound aircraft.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 Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, said the Transportation Ministry is responsible for vetting passenger lists from foreign flights. Transportation Minister Miri Regev on X said the security agencies are responsible for flight security and that her ministry wasn’t given a list of passengers or any warnings.Preliminary investigations have pointed to a series of security lapses. Officials have said the Omani co-pilot had been barred from flying by his own country because of concerns about his extremist views. It is also unclear how an Omani citizen, from a country that has no diplomatic relations with Israel, was allowed to fly a plane carrying Israelis to Tel Aviv.Israeli 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.Sharing the list is standard aviation procedure. But 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.Netanyahu later told the head of the National Security Council to appoint an examiner to review “all security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel.”With the investigation into the FlyDubai incident underway, preliminary details have highlighted several major security lapses. The UAE, 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” on 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 subdue the attacker.The passengers who halted the attack and helped regain control of the aircraft have been hailed as heroes in Israel.But as the initial euphoria of the rescue has subsided, officials have begun to raise difficult questions and trade accusations about the security blunders that could have led to a major disaster.Ahead of the elections at the end of the month, some opposition candidates have seized on the security failures to highlight what they perceive as negligence on the part of Netanyahu and his supporters. Transportation Minister Regev is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and a staunch supporter.“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 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.
UAE had shared FlyDubai crew details with Israel ahead of flight
