A potentially critical Israeli database containing information on international passengers and flight crews was never used by the Transportation Ministry, according to reports emerging in the aftermath of the attempted Flydubai terror attack, prompting political commentator Amit Segal to brand the failure a “real scandal.”

The revelation has become a central element of the growing controversy over how Hamam al-Hammami, the Omani co-pilot accused of trying to seize and crash Flydubai Flight FZ1073, was permitted to serve aboard a flight to Israel despite his nationality and reported history of extremist concerns.

“The Transportation Ministry’s failure is glaring in one central area: a National Passenger Profiling Center was established,” Segal wrote.

The National Passenger Profiling Center was established under legislation approved in 2023 to collect and analyze information supplied by airlines about passengers and crew members on international flights. The data can be used for purposes that include combating terrorism and protecting civil aviation.

According to Segal, government bodies entitled to use the system were expected to authorize employees who could access the information and perform searches tailored to their particular responsibilities.

He pointed to the Health Ministry as one example, saying officials could use the system to identify travelers arriving from countries experiencing disease outbreaks. The Transportation Ministry, he argued, could similarly use it to identify pilots or crew members from hostile countries.

The database was not merely theoretical, Segal noted, saying it had previously demonstrated its usefulness by assisting authorities in locating Israeli women who went missing in Vienna.

But Segal charged that the Transportation Ministry failed to take even the basic steps necessary to make use of the system.

“The Transportation Ministry never bothered to authorize employees, never submitted a single query, and did not even bother to pay its share of the database.”

“If it was decided that pilots from hostile countries are not allowed in, how are you going to identify them if you didn’t bother to do your basic part and actually check? It’s a real scandal,” he added.

The criticism comes amid a widening examination of the Israeli government’s handling of security for foreign airlines, with multiple reports indicating that information about the Flydubai crew was already inside an Israeli government system before the flight departed Dubai.

The Israel Tax Authority has confirmed that information concerning the pilots and cabin crew was transferred to the National Passenger Profiling Center before the flight. The information supplied by airlines includes identifying details such as names, nationalities and travel-document information.

That is particularly significant because al-Hammami was an Omani citizen. Oman does not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, and the attack has exposed questions over why his nationality did not prompt additional scrutiny before he was permitted to operate a Tel Aviv-bound flight.

Reports indicate that while the information existed in the Israeli system, it was not pulled from the database by the relevant Transportation Ministry officials for examination. The ministry was legally permitted to request queries or assessments from the center but reportedly had never sought to activate that access since the system was established.

The Shin Bet, Mossad and Israel Police, by contrast, are among the agencies authorized to maintain their own branches of the system. Reports have indicated that the Mossad also did not check the Flydubai crew list before the flight, underscoring the broader questions now being raised about how responsibilities were divided among Israel’s various agencies.

The system itself may also have weaknesses. Crew information can sometimes reach the database only shortly before an aircraft’s doors close, and in some instances after departure, leaving authorities with a narrow window in which to identify a potential security problem. That process is now reportedly being examined as part of the broader investigation.

The Flydubai case also exposed a longstanding practice under which foreign airline crew members holding citizenship from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel were able to enter Ben Gurion Airport. Only after the attempted attack were instructions tightened to prevent airlines from assigning such crew members to Israel-bound flights.

The controversy has grown further because the underlying security gaps were reportedly identified well before the Flydubai attack. An internal National Security Council document found that the Transportation Ministry was not fulfilling responsibilities assigned to it under previous decisions concerning foreign aviation security.

The same issue reportedly surfaced in a classified State Comptroller report and in discussions involving the Transportation Ministry, National Security Council, Shin Bet and Mossad, indicating that concerns over the division of responsibility had been circulating within the government for some time.

Transportation Ministry professionals had themselves warned that their office lacked the capabilities necessary to shoulder the broader security responsibilities being assigned to it. Nevertheless, those responsibilities remained with the ministry, while no replacement system was established to bridge the gap between intelligence held by Israeli agencies and the screening that needed to be performed on incoming foreign crews.

Another issue now receiving scrutiny is the size of the ministry unit responsible for the task. The Transportation Ministry’s Security, Emergency and Cyber Division has responsibilities spanning aviation, maritime transportation and ground transportation, yet reportedly operates with only about 10 permanent full-time employees after departures and unfilled positions reduced its staffing.

Transportation Ministry officials have pushed back strongly against attempts to place responsibility for the Flydubai failure solely on the ministry. They argue that the ministry is not an intelligence service and does not possess the manpower or intelligence capabilities necessary to conduct independent security-background investigations of every passenger and crew member flying to Israel.

Ministry officials have also maintained that the names of the Flydubai pilots were not sent directly to their security division before the flight, even though the crew list was transmitted to the National Passenger Profiling Center. They have further acknowledged that existing procedures did not contemplate a scenario in which a commercial pilot himself would attempt to carry out a terror attack.

The ministry has additionally argued that some of the criticism has blurred the distinction between its responsibilities for regularly scheduled foreign flights and those involving charter operations.

The dispute over responsibility has intensified following reports that Emirati authorities transmitted the flight’s passenger and crew information, including nationalities, to Israel before departure and that Israel raised no objection to anyone aboard the aircraft.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyomin Netanyahu has now ordered a comprehensive investigation into the security arrangements governing foreign civilian aviation to Israel. On Sunday evening, Netanyahu instructed National Security Council chief Shmuel Ben-Ezra to appoint an examiner to review the entire system and determine where the failures occurred.

The review is expected to examine not only why al-Hammami was not flagged, but the larger question now hanging over Israel’s aviation-security apparatus: how critical information could have been sitting inside an Israeli government database before the flight took off without anyone responsible for protecting the flight making use of it.

{Matzav.com}