Authorities in the had provided Israel with details of the passengers and crew travelling on the FlyDubai flight before an Omani co-pilot tried to take control of the aircraft and crash it, news agency AP reported.
The disclosure has raised fresh questions about how the co-pilot managed to get through security checks despite concerns over his background. The investigation into the incident is still underway, with preliminary findings pointing to several possible security failures.
Officials have previously said that the co-pilot, who was from , had been prohibited from flying in his home country over concerns linked to his extremist views.
Questions have also emerged over how an Omani national was permitted to serve on a flight carrying Israeli passengers to Tel Aviv, given that Oman does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
The UAE, which is overseeing the investigation, has described Wednesday’s incident as a “terrorist attack”. According to officials, the co-pilot used the crash axe in the cockpit to attack the captain before attempting to take control of the aircraft as it descended towards the ground.
The flight was carrying 182 people when the incident took place. The Indian captain eventually managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and other people to enter and overpower the attacker, officials said.
The regional officials said the UAE had shared information about everyone travelling on the flight with Israel, including details of their nationalities.
However, Israel did not flag any passenger or crew member as a security concern, the officials said. They spoke anonymously because they were not authorised to discuss details of the ongoing investigation publicly.
Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet, said responsibility for checking passenger lists from foreign flights lies with the Transportation Ministry.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev, speaking to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan, disputed that account. She said security agencies are responsible for flight security and claimed her ministry had neither received the passenger list nor been alerted to any concerns.
Sharing passenger information with the destination country is a routine part of international aviation procedures. However, Dvir Rubenstien, head of aviation security at Israel’s Transportation Ministry, said the ministry does not independently screen every passenger travelling on foreign flights.
Speaking to Army Radio, Rubenstien said the ministry depends on security checks conducted locally. He added that it does not have the tools or capability to carry out individual checks on every passenger on every flight.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel has long-standing agreements with to keep pilots from flying into the country if they are citizens of nations that don’t maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.
Australian police said Sunday that counterterrorism investigators were looking into the attacker’s possible connections to Australia.
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.
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.
(With inputs from news agency AP)
