Some view the following story as a major security failure while others downplay the incident, explaining nothing here represents a major failure of airport security.

The story involves a passenger who boarded a Turkish Pegasus Airlines flight in Germany that was heading to Dubai, via Istanbul Turkey.

The passenger, whose first name is Muhammed, got off the plane to change flights in Istanbul as he was supposed to do. It appears the security failure took place here as Muhammed got on to a flight (not El Al) heading to Israel from Istanbul and landed in Tel Aviv. Making things worse, it so happened that the seat he was supposed to occupy was vacant on the flight to Tel Aviv so the double ticketing issue did not set off an alarm.

The experts playing down the incident explain the passenger did pass through all security screening so he was not a threat in any way. Others opine that the security in Istanbul is nothing like Israeli security and the fact remains he could indeed have been a threat but B”H this was not the case.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)