“A kamikaze pilot in the cockpit is not easy to stop.” Says former Israeli general Amos Yadlin

Whilst the Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, described the hijacking of the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv as a “jihadist terrorist attack”, yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox that the pilot “had undergone radical Islamist indoctrination” and was on a “suicide mission to bring down the plane”. According to analysts, investigators in Dubai and Tel Aviv are considering three theories, each with different consequences for a region already in a state of high tension. The least destabilising explanation for the balance of power in the Gulf is that the attacker was an Islamist with no links to organisations or states. On 22 December 2001, British national Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes. Reid, a self-proclaimed follower of Osama bin Laden, failed in his attempt, but as a result of his actions, passengers in many countries are now required to remove their shoes during airport security checks. For Arab governments, the possibility that a lone attacker was behind the hijacking would be difficult to accept, but manageable. It would point to gaps in security checks, but also to a broader threat.

The second possibility is that the attack was planned by an organised group. This scenario would raise more serious and complex issues. The war in Iran and the killing of Ali Khamenei have fuelled calls for revenge amongst some of Iran’s allies in the region. A group capable of allowing an Omani pilot armed with a knife to gain access to the cockpit of a commercial airliner bound for Israel would demonstrate an operational capability sufficient to alarm airlines and governments far beyond the borders of the Arab world.

The third scenario, and the most dangerous, is that a government was behind the attack. The attack took place just a few days after senior Iranian officials warned neighbouring countries not to comply with US sanctions against Iranian airlines. Washington placed Iran on a ‘blacklist’ as part of measures that came into force on 23 September. Since then, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and several Iraqi airports have suspended flights to and from Iran. “Our strategy on this matter is clear: airspace in the region is open to everyone or to no one,” said Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, on 25 September.

“If Iran were behind this, it would be further proof that Iran is a terrorist state,” Amos Yadlin, one of Israel’s most eminent officers and strategists, a former Major General, head of intelligence and one of the pilots who, on a top-secret mission in 1981, disabled Saddam Hussein’s nuclear capabilities, tells Il Foglio. “I fear the Saudis will not investigate this as if it were a crime against the Saudis. But we must give them the chance to arrive at the right answer. And we do not know whether it is Iran’s fault or the incitement circulating throughout the Arab and Muslim world against Jews and against Israel. It could also be a single individual, like the 11 September suicide bombers.”

Yadlin cites an incident. “The 1999 EgyptAir flight, departing from Los Angeles to Cairo with a stopover at JFK in New York. One theory is that the pilot caused the plane to crash. It could therefore be someone incited in the mosques who decided to commit suicide. We must wait to find out who is behind it.”

The new and chilling fact is that 11 September led us to seal off the cockpits because the problem lay amongst the passengers, whereas in this case we discover that it lies within. Matthew Borie, Chief Intelligence Officer and founder of Osprey Flight Solutions, told yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: “The vast majority of security measures introduced in the aviation sector after 11 September are designed to manage passengers, to prevent them from gaining access to the cockpit. This assumes, however, that the people inside the cockpit are part of the solution and not part of the potential problem.”

“After 11 September, security procedures for passengers were raised to the highest level,” Yadlin tells us. “But if pilots decide to crash the plane or take their own lives, it is very difficult to stop them. Saving this Flydubai aircraft from disaster was down solely to a very brave Indian pilot and four Israelis who did the right thing.” They were just a few seconds away from another 11 September.

On Wednesday, following the standard protocol for an aircraft hijacking, the Israeli Air Force scrambled two fighter jets to intercept the Emirati aircraft. This operation is designed exclusively for situations in which hijackers attempt to crash the aircraft into a densely populated urban area: in such a case, the Israeli leadership would have had to decide whether to shoot down the aircraft over an uninhabited area to prevent hundreds of further casualties. Israel came that close to tragedy on Wednesday.