Hijacking Attempt on El Al Flight Foiled Sunday, November 17, 2002

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Security guards on Israel's national airline El Al overpowered a man who tried to hijack a flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul, an airport official said.

None of the 170 passengers on board was harmed and the plane landed safely, said Oktay Cakirlar, an official at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport.

Cakirlar said El Al Flight 581 sent out a hijacking signal as it approached Istanbul but the suspect was overcome.

"No one was injured," Cakirlar told The Associated Press by telephone. "The terrorist is in custody at the police station at the airport."

Turkish television networks quoted police sources as saying that the alleged hijacker was an Israeli Arab and was armed with a knife.

The television reports said the man was overpowered by two Israeli security guards aboard the plane.

He reportedly first threatened a flight attendant with a knife and tried to approach the cockpit but he was overpowered by two security guards, one posing as a passenger, Turkish television said.

The suspect was being held at the airport police station.

"We heard people saying there was fighting and half a minute later it became clear that from row five or six a man ran amok toward the pilot's cabin, attacked a stewardess and tried to enter the cockpit," an Israeli passenger on the plane told Israel army radio.

"We saw a stewardess running like crazy from the front of the place to the business section ... She was terrified," said the passenger, identified only as Menachem.

Security guards "threw him to the floor with his legs spread and his face to the floor. The passengers were hysterical but the flight attendants were very cool, they calmed us down," he said.

At the airport, passengers could be seen going through security checks and passport control.

El Al is widely regarded as the best protected airline in the world, but also one of the most threatened. From the late 1960s into the 1980s, El Al planes and passengers were subjected to shooting attacks, hijacking and bombing attempts.

El Al's formidable security includes armed guards at check-in, on-board marshals and extensive searches of luggage. Passengers are told to arrive three hours ahead of flights to allow enough time for the security checks.

On the Fourth of July, an Egyptian immigrant, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, opened fire at the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles Airport, killing two people before he was shot dead by an airline security guard. Nothing was found to link the incident to terrorist groups and the motive remained unknown.

Hadayet, however, had previously told U.S. authorities that he was falsely accused of being in a militant Egyptian group that the United States now lists as a terror group.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2002

Answers

Man identified as 23-year old Israeli Arab sitting in business class. Talking heads are incredulous that he managed to have a knife on board, given el Al security. Whole incident took about 30 seconds, tackled by two armed guards aboard. Could be he was on a reconnaisance mission, i.e., someone else onboard watching how it came down, checking to see if knife could be retrieved, whatever.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2002

glad no one was hurt.

I wish our security was as good. unfortunately, we have sleeping concourse guards, resulting in airport shut down while security tapes are played to see if anyone got by him. Two did, and so they had to check everything to make sure no one planted anything anywhere. One flight had left the airport during that time and landed in Chicago, resulting in those passengers being check by security as they deplaned.

-- Anonymous, November 18, 2002

SKY HEROES SAVE DAY By URI DAN

November 18, 2002 -- JERUSALEM - A knife-wielding Arab terrorist tried to stab an El Al flight attendant and storm the cockpit of a jet carrying 170 people to Turkey last night - but was foiled by quick-thinking air marshals.

At one point in the terrifying midair drama, the pilots of the Tel Aviv-Istanbul flight alerted air-traffic controllers by sending out the coded international signal for hijacking.

But by the time the Boeing 757 made its scheduled landed at the Ataturk International Airport 15 minutes later, the suspect - an Israeli-Arab with ties to Islamic extremists - had been subdued by two security officials disguised as passengers.

No one was hurt.

The would-be hijacker, who was believed to be sitting alone in business class, managed to reach the locked cockpit door and tried to kick it in.

But within seconds of spotting the commotion, security guards grabbed him and "threw him to the floor with his legs spread and his face to the floor," a witness said.

"We were hysterical, but the flight attendants calmed us down."

Israel's main airport, Ben-Gurion, from which the Tel Aviv-to-Istanbul flight originated, temporarily barred outgoing flights as tense government officials launched an immediate probe.

The attacker was identified as Tawfiq Fukra, a 23-year-old Arab with an Israeli passport.

One Israeli newspaper said he was known to be "eccentric," but did not elaborate.

Israeli officials told The Post they were especially concerned about the security breach, since Fukra's extremist-linked background had been known to them before the attack, and they wondered how he even was allowed on the flight.

They also want to know how he managed to smuggle a small knife past their ultratight security onto Flight 581.

Israeli officials speculated that the attacker may have attempted the hijacking in the final minutes of the two-hour flight to force pilots to make a last-minute diversion to nearby Iran. The suspect was being interrogated by Turkish officials last night.

His attempted hijacking was especially surprising, since Israel's national airline is widely considered to have the staunchest security measures in the world.

Security has been extremely tight since the sole successful hijacking of an El Al flight, in 1968.

Today's safety measures include armed guards at check-in, pilots trained in hand-to-hand combat and bulletproof cockpit doors.

Passengers are told to arrive three hours ahead of flights to allow enough time for all the security checks.

-- Anonymous, November 18, 2002