Who vetted the flydubai copilot? Israeli agencies dispute the job

Israel's Transportation Ministry has said it does not carry out its own screening of foreign pilots flying into the country, and depends on assurances from the airlines that employ them. Haaretz reported that the ministry made this acknowledgement on Saturday night, days after a Dubai to Israel service operated by flydubai became the scene of what Israeli outlets describe as an attempted hijacking. The plane landed at Ben Gurion Airport on September 30, 2026.

According to The Times of Israel, the copilot attacked the captain as the aircraft approached Tel Aviv, and passengers subdued him. Haaretz identifies the copilot as an Omani pilot who had been flagged for extremism. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted returning passengers at the airport and said they had prevented a major disaster. Since then, attention has shifted to a question no agency has answered cleanly: whose job it was to check the crew.

What the Transportation Ministry says

In a statement responding to a report by Army Radio, the ministry said flydubai had been given explicit instructions and had committed in writing to performing background checks on its crews and to applying Israel's national restrictions within its crew assignment system. The ministry added that it never received the crew roster for flight FZ1073 and that its Security Division has no access to flight lists, The Times of Israel reported.

The Jerusalem Post characterised the ministry's position as a denial that vetting pilots is part of its role. The ministry, which is headed by Transportation Minister Miri Regev, also rejected the Army Radio claims as confusing foreign airline flights with charter flights, according to Ynet.

The Army Radio account

Army Radio, known in Hebrew as Galei Tzahal, is a broadcaster run by the Israel Defense Forces. Ynet, citing its report, said Netanyahu decided roughly a year and a half ago that responsibility for securing foreign flights would move to the Transportation Ministry. Since then, the report said, the ministry has not asked the security services for help in carrying out that responsibility, and neither the Shin Bet (Israel's domestic security agency) nor the Mossad (its foreign intelligence service) offered any. The head of the ministry's security division warned that the task was beyond the division's capacity, Ynet reported, quoting him as saying in effect that it was too big for them.

The Times of Israel said Army Radio reported that the assignment came first from the security cabinet, the small group of ministers who handle defence decisions, and later from the prime minister.

An earlier warning

The National Security Council, an advisory body that sits in the Prime Minister's Office and coordinates national security policy, cautioned last year that the ministry's handling of foreign flight screening fell short of what its assigned role demanded. Haaretz attributed this to a security source; the council's warning itself has not been published.

Private flights versus commercial ones

Ynet reported that the ministry does run thorough checks on the history of pilots, but only for private flights. It described a case in which a pilot from the United States was turned down while the Omani copilot was not. On commercial routes, Ynet said, Israel leans on an email from 2020 setting out flydubai's commitment, a document it says it has obtained, and argued that any foreign carrier could in practice avoid responsibility without consequence.

An explanatory piece in Haaretz framed the gap this way: Israeli authorities are able to obtain data on foreign crews, yet no one body has a clear mandate to review it.

Where accounts differ

The core disagreement is over responsibility. Army Radio, as relayed by Ynet and The Times of Israel, says the Transportation Ministry was formally given the task. The ministry says flydubai undertook the checks and that it lacked the crew list. The Jerusalem Post reported the ministry as denying any vetting role. Language also varies: outlets describe the incident as an attempted hijacking, a terror plot or an attack on the captain, and one Times of Israel blog photo caption says the copilot allegedly sought to crash the plane. Commentary in Israel Hayom and on The Times of Israel's blogs credited passengers rather than the system with stopping the attack.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports seen here explains what the extremism flag on the copilot consisted of, who raised it, or when. They do not say whether flydubai has responded to the ministry's account, what checks the airline actually carried out on this crew, or what motive investigators attribute to the copilot. The reports do not describe the state of the criminal investigation, the copilot's current status, or whether any injuries occurred beyond the attack on the captain. Nor do they say whether the government intends to reassign responsibility for vetting foreign crews.