Israel admits it does not run background checks on foreign pilots after flydubai cockpit attack

Israel admits security gap

Israel’s transport ministry has admitted it does not conduct independent background checks on foreign pilots flying into the country, stating it cannot guarantee that flights operated by international carriers are completely safe.

The admission from the ministry's security division comes amid a major investigation into a near-disaster on flydubai Flight 1073. A security official told local media that the ministry does not receive the names of pilots and crew in advance, nor does it have the intelligence resources or overseas staff to vet them.

"We are not an intelligence body that checks the intelligence background of foreigners," a representative of the division told the Hebrew news site Ynet, adding that "nothing is 100% when it comes to security."

The flydubai cockpit incident

The security gap has sparked alarm following a mid-air crisis on the flydubai flight, where co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami allegedly attempted to crash the plane. The aircraft suffered an extreme descent that tore away part of its rudder before making an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

The captain, Smit Machchhar, was seriously injured, and off-duty crew members travelling as passengers had to step in to help stabilise the aircraft and land it safely.

Investigation details show that Hammami, an Omani citizen, had previously been flagged by authorities in his home country. Omani officials had barred him from flying over fears he had adopted extremist views, reassigning him to an office job at Oman Air. However, he was later hired by the Dubai-based carrier flydubai. A Gulf diplomat said Hammami passed standard security screenings before being hired, but these only looked for prior criminal convictions, not signs of radicalisation.

Questions over airspace security

The incident has raised serious questions in Israel, which has agreements intended to stop pilots from hostile states or countries without diplomatic relations—such as Oman—from flying into its airspace. Yet Hammami was at the controls of a flight bound for Tel Aviv carrying mostly Israeli passengers.

Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev defended her department by passing the responsibility to the country’s security agencies. She told the Kan public broadcaster that assessing security threats is the job of intelligence officials, not her ministry. The security division itself argued that the only way to completely eliminate such a threat would be to ban foreign airlines from landing in Israel altogether.

Agencies from four regional countries, alongside US and Western intelligence, are now trying to piece together Hammami’s motives. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Hammami had undergone "Islamist radicalisation," investigators have so far found no formal ties to any established militant groups, suggesting he may have acted alone.