Feb. 19 (UPI) — Israel’s aviation sector attempted Monday to downplay reports of an attempt to take over the communication network of an El Al aircraft as it was overflying Houthi-controlled territory at the weekend and divert it from its destination.
National airline El Al said that “hostile elements” attempted to seize control of the communication network of the flight from Phuket to Tel Aviv on Saturday night with the aim of diverting it from its intended course.
The aircraft reached its destination safely, and this was the second such attempt in the past week, according to Israeli media.
Although the spoofing incident took in “Houthi airspace,” an unnamed group in Somalia is believed to be behind the attack in which flight crew were radioed instructions that differed from their set flight plan.
But, suspecting that something was amiss, flight crew members disobeyed the instructions and switched to an alternate communication network. By cross-checking with air traffic controllers they learned they were being misled and continued with their original flight plan, bringing the flight to a safe landing in Tel Aviv.
In a statement, El Al insisted the disruptions were not targeted at its aircraft and that it was “not a security incident — the disruption did not affect the continuation of the flight.”
Former Israel Civil Aviation Authority and ex-fighter pilot Avner Yarkoni said it was not a new phenomenon and that there little to worry about for the time being, as communication and navigation in passenger aviation do not rely on a single system and had layers of redundancy built in.
“It should be remembered that from the plane’s communication, it does not go anywhere. That is, the communication system guides the pilots, but if there is doubt — they don’t comply,” Yarkoni said in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.
“There are other systems where one can verify and check the communication readiness, some of them digital [ones] that are not based on verbal communication at all and are relied upon in international flights,” he said.
“In addition, there is also a regional broadcast network that provides instructions, and the most important thing is that communication disruptions there are not new — not only toward El Al planes, but toward all sorts of planes.”
He said moves were underway toward systems that relied less on spoken communication, but that it was impossible to guarantee the best hacker in the world or a hostile nation that wanted to enter would not be able to break through computer security.
“We are not there … and we must remember that ultimately, pilots know how to manually take control of a plane, and it is not flying alone,” Yarkoni said.