El Al opens probe into events surrounding ‘Shabbat’ flight diverted to Athens

The CEO of El Al said Monday the company is setting up a committee to investigate the events surrounding a flight that was forced to land in Athens after some religious travelers reportedly caused an uproar over fears they would not land until after the beginning of Shabbat, when observant Jews are prohibited from traveling.

In a letter to staff members, Gonen Usishkin said that the complex decision-making process surrounding two Israel-bound flights that took off late because of weather-related delays in New York late on Thursday, “took place in a dynamic and developing reality that was not entirely controlled by the company,” Channel 10 reported.

Usishkin said the airline “prides itself on being the melting pot of Israeli society” and that he regrets the incident has led to “polarizing discourse and the exchanging of accusations.”

El Al and some passengers have alleged that several ultra-Orthodox passengers became violent toward the flight attendants — charges that were vehemently denied by many of the religious passengers on board. El Al said it intends to file a complaint against at least one passenger.

El Al CEO Gonen Usishkin attends a press conference at Beit Sokolov in Tel Aviv, March 28, 2018 (Flash90)

The pilot of the flight said in his report on the incident that he had been taking the plane back to the terminal in New York, rather than taking off, when a rabbi on board convinced the passengers that they would manage to make it to Israel before the Jewish day of rest began.

The pilot’s report, aired by Channel 10 news on Sunday, detailed a series of mishaps and delays that led to the incident, and set out the efforts to assuage the flyers. It also repeated the allegations of violence.

The complications forced one plane, which took off late from JFK, to make an unscheduled stop in Athens. The second plane was also considering diverting, to Rome, but in the end continued its flight to Ben Gurion Airport as scheduled, because of a medical condition affecting one passenger.

According to the pilot’s report, the delays started when a car carrying four crew members took five and a half hours to reach the airport due to the snow. However, there was still time to make it to Israel before Shabbat, and the flight was to go ahead, the pilot said.

“I received an update from the attendant that there were Haredim who wanted to get off the plane. The second report I got came with an explanation that the Haredim were haranguing the crew with aggressive words,” he wrote. “At that point I explained over the intercom that we would be landing in Israel an hour and a half before Shabbat.”

However, he could “hear the uproar around the flight attendant and she was showing signs of distress,” so he decided to acquiesce to the demands of the observant passengers and go back to the terminal, he said.

A flight attendant speaking to a passenger on an El Al flight from New York to Israel on November 16, 2018. (screen capture: Israel Hayom)

While taxiing back, the pilot said, a prominent rabbi who was in business class (identified by other passengers as Rabbi Shalom Ber Sorotzkin, the head of the Ateres Shlomo Yeshiva) asked to address the passengers.

“He explained to them that it was okay to reach Israel an hour and a half before Shabbat and they would receive compensation. The Haredim agreed,” the pilot wrote.

However, religious passengers have disputed that account, saying that they continued to ask to get off the plane even after the rabbi’s remarks. They accused the pilot of deceiving them by promising to return them to the terminal and then taking off without further explanation.

A number of ultra-Orthodox passengers demanded to deplane in New York before the flight took off just before midnight Thursday, and were told that the plane would return to the gate, Jerusalem-based tour guide Betsalel Steinhart wrote in a blog post on The Times of Israel.

“The captain blatantly lied to us,” he claimed. “In order to get them to sit down the pilot announced that we were returning to the gate and to please sit. He then drove and took off within a few minutes — and of course in your seat you have no idea where the plane is driving towards.”

The captain then said that the reason the flight was diverted to Athens was because they were unexpectedly made to fly a longer route by ground control, which meant they would no longer reach Israel on time.

According to the co-pilot’s report, that was when the violence broke out.

“There were reports of an uproar, shouting, pushing, raised hands. The cockpit crew were called liars by some of the passengers. It was chaos in the cabin, flight attendants were crying,” the copilot wrote.

“I did not see any violence on the flight after the captain announced the change of destination, although clearly I wasn’t watching every part of the plane all the time. If there was, then that is inexcusable,” wrote Steinhart.

“I saw: disappointment, anger, raised voices, for sure,” he added.

Yehuda Shlezinger, a writer for the Israel Hayom tabloid who was also on the flight that diverted to Athens, called the reports of violence “fake news.”

He claimed that the only violence was from a flight attendant who tried to take his camera away, and posted a video of ultra-Orthodox men loudly singing a Shabbat-themed song while standing on the flight.

“I saw and documented flight attendants who decided to punish passengers and not give them service,” he wrote in a column for the paper.

Earlier, a passenger aboard the flight uploaded a short video showing the commotion and a message to Facebook slamming the behavior of the passengers.

Roni Meital said that “after six hours of flying, I suddenly heard screaming and saw a flight attendant crying after she was hit, pushed, amid threats they would break open the door to the cockpit.”

El Al said representatives of the airline were in touch with the passengers who got off the plane in Athens and that they would travel to Israel after Shabbat ended on Saturday evening. Non-observant passengers were put on a flight later Friday to Israel.

“We apologize for any discomfort caused to our customers, but as said we preferred to have the flight leave New York the same day,” the statement said.

“It should be emphasized the company does not tolerate violence toward the [flight] crew and we will determinedly and without compromise act in accordance with the law against any passenger whom a complaint is filed against, as we have done so far,” El Al added.

In accordance with the laws of Judaism, observant Jews do not use electronics or light fires on Shabbat and also refrain from traveling in cars or airplanes. Exceptions are made for medical or security situations in which a life is threatened.