Israir Airlines - Incidents and Accidents

Incidents and Accidents

In June 2001, one of Israir's ATR 42-320 aircraft was damaged beyond repair following a heavy landing at Ben Gurion Airport. Despite the aircraft being written off, no passengers were injured in this incident.

On July 6, 2005 a fully loaded Israir 767 accidentally taxied onto an active runway at JFK, and a Douglas DC-8 cargo aircraft narrowly avoided collision by taking off at full throttle above them, with only 45 feet of clearance over the 767. However, Israir pilots modified their incident reports to claim that the cargo plane had taken off beside the plane, rather than directly above. The pilots and several high-ranking Israir officials were dismissed in the scandal.

In May 2007, an Israir Airlines aircraft on a test flight was almost shot down by Israeli F-16 jets after it entered a demarcation zone where airlines are expected to identify themselves.

Later that month, on May 23, an Israir flight had to make an emergency landing following smoke build up in the cabin on approach at Berlin-Schönefeld International Airport. No one was injured in the incident.

In July 2008, an Israir Airlines aircraft flew from Eilat Airport to Ben Gurion International Airport with a small hole in its frame. The hole was discovered by mechanics at Ben Gurion and there is an ongoing probe as to whether or not Israir knew of the hole, which, as it turns out, was caused by Israir workers in Eilat when they crashed a mobile staircase into the aircraft's body. The plane was scheduled to fly to Italy from Tel Aviv, and at an altitude of over 10,000 feet, the plane would most likely have experienced a decompression, possibly explosive, and could have resulted in injuries or fatalities.