El Al - Incidents and Accidents

Incidents and Accidents

• On 24 November 1951, a DC-4 on a cargo flight from Tel Aviv to Amsterdam crashed on approach to Zürich Airport, killing 6 crew members.

• On 27 July 1955, a Lockheed Constellation operating El Al Flight 402, was shot down by two Bulgarian Air Force fighter jets over Blagoevgrad, near Sofia, Bulgaria, after it strayed into Bulgarian airspace in rough weather. All 58 passengers and crew were killed.

• On 23 July 1968, El Al Flight 426 operated by a Boeing 707-358C on route from London to Tel Aviv via Rome, was hijacked by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine shortly after take-off from Rome-Fiumicino airport and forcibly diverted to Algiers. The hijacking ended after 40 days and is considered to be the only successful hijacking involving an El Al jet.

• In February, 1969, an El Al Boeing 707 was attacked at Zürich airport. An Israeli trainee pilot was killed, with another eight people being wounded. In a firefight involving security personnel, one hijacker was killed, while the others were arrested. The hijackers were later put on trial in Winterthur, Switzerland but released following the hijacking of a Swissair aircraft one year later.

• On September 6, 1970, El Al Flight 219 from Tel Aviv to New York, with a stopover in Amsterdam, was the target of an attempted hijacking by Leila Khaled and Patrick Argüello after taking off from Amsterdam. The hijacking was meant to be one of the Dawson's Field hijackings, but it failed. 1 person was killed on this incident.

• On January 13, 1975, several men, including Carlos the Jackal, made an unsuccessful attempt to destroy an El Al airliner. The men tried again on January 17, also without success.

• On 27 December 1985, after several failed attempts to attack El Al aircraft, guerrillas of the Fatah Revolutionary Council attacked El Al ticket counters at Rome-Fiumicino and Vienna-Schwechat airports, killing 18 people.

• Another terrorist attack was foiled on 18 April 1986 in what became known as the Hindawi Affair. A pregnant Irishwoman named Anne-Marie Murphy was about to board an El Al flight at London's Heathrow airport when her bag was found to contain three pounds of plastic explosives. These had been planted by her fiancé Nezar Hindawi, who was booked on a different flight. Hindawi was jailed for 45 years, the longest sentence ever delivered by a British court. There was evidence that Syrian officials were involved and as a result, Britain cut off diplomatic relations with Syria.

• On 4 October 1992, El Al Flight 1862 operated by a Boeing 747-200F cargo plane, crashed into two highrise apartment buildings (Kruitberg and Groeneveen) in Bijlmermeer, a neighborhood of Amsterdam. The crash was caused by an engine detaching from the aircraft, knocking a second engine off the aircraft as well. The three crew members, one passenger, and 39 people on the ground were killed.

• On 4 July 2002, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet shot six Israelis at El Al's ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport before he was shot and killed by an El Al security guard. Two of the victims died. Although not linked to any terrorist group, Hadayet, an Egyptian, espoused anti-Israeli views and was opposed to US policy in the Middle East. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation classified the shooting as a terrorist act, one of the few on US soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

• On 17 November 2002, Tawfiq Fukra, a twenty-three-year-old Israeli Arab, attempted to hijack an El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul. He was reportedly armed with a pocket knife, and attempted to break into the cockpit in order to fly the aircraft back to Israel and crash it into a building. He was apprehended by on-board security personnel. Fukra has denied the charges.

• On 9 August, 2012, airfares for flights to New York were erroneously listed at a steep discount (at $400 from the usual $1,600 price), with at least 5,000 tickets sold. A contractor responsible for posting the fares was believed responsible. The airline honored the tickets anyway.