For Second Time in Days, Violence Disrupts El Al Flight

El Al announced Wednesday that flight LY 251, which was on its way from Tel Aviv to Prague, returned to Tel Aviv because of violent behavior by a passenger that represented a risk to the flight’s safety. The decision to return to Ben Gurion Airport was made shortly after takeoff, after a “violent passenger” incident was declared.

A similar incident occurred Tuesday as well, when an El Al plane flying from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv had to make an emergency landing in Madrid. The emergency landing came after a passenger became unruly and behaved violently towards the air crew, to the point that it was decided that he was jeopardizing the flight’s safety.

Any emergency landing such as this causes a delay in the flight for all passengers, not to mention the unpleasantness, and it also involves considerable costs for the airline.

In both incidents, a complaint was filed with the police. This morning, when the Prague-bound flight returned to Tel Aviv, the police were waiting for the passenger invovled. El Al said in a statement: “A criminal complaint has been filed against the passenger, and after the incident has been investigated and the details of how it came about are clear, the company will examine the use of further measures at its disposal, among them putting the passenger on a blacklist, which will mean that he will be forbidden to fly on El Al in the future, and even a claim on account of the damage apparently caused to the company, in order to fully deal with the matter.”

El Al CEO Avigal Soreq said, “We regret these kinds of incidents that harm El Al and the flight experience of our customers. We shall continue to apply a determined policy of zero tolerance for incidents in which a passenger behaves violently and puts passengers and crew at risk. We will not allow harm to the safety and security of El Al employees.”