TrendIsrael opens secret flight security operation center

Necessity is the mother of invention. Many measures and technologies aimimg better to cope with terrorism are first tried in Israel (our guess here is that Israel would gladly give up this particular honor). Our sources in Israel report that last month Israel, in complete secrecy, has opened the Operational Center of Air Traffic Security. The center is located in an undisclosed location in central Israel, and its staff minutely tracks and monitors, and also consults background intelligence information, about each and every plane about to enter Israel’s air space.

Discussions and planning for the sophisticated center began shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The planning was completed two years ago, and the government authorized to construction of the center. The center is operated by staff from Elbit and higher-ups at in the security division of the Ministry of Transportation. Israel’s military censorship does not allow for too many details about the center’s operations to be disclosed, but people in the know say that a staff of eighteen individuals is responsible for running the center, six of whom are located in control centers in the north and south of the country.

We can tell you that the Israeli security services place one or more agents on each flight heading toward Israel, regardless of its point if origin. Moreover, the vaunted Mossad also gathers information on the pilots and crew of each of the planes. This background information is combined with updated reports on the flight and the people on it which is provided by the secret agents on the flight and with surveillance and tracking information on then plane’s path — and the entire package is then provided in real time to the ever-alert Israel Air Foce. Any suspicion is immedialtely reported to the higher political and military echelons.

Three weeks, but a week after the center was officially opened, the first real alert was sound: Two Air Force planes were launched to intercept a Continental after the control tower at Ben Gurion Air Port lost touch with the plane.

The center is equipped with powerful computers, dozens of plasma screens, and the most sophisticated communication gear. During the next few months, Elbit and the Ministry of Transportation will provide all the airlines flying to Israel with “positive code” systems. Once the system is installed, each plane heading toward Israel will have to identify itself beginning 180 miles before reaching Israel.

You may recall that in February 1973, against the background of PLO threats to fly a civilian airline and crash it over Tel Aviv, a Lybian plane flying over Egypt strayed into Israeli airspace over the Sinai Peninsula. The plane was headed toward Tel Aviv and was intercepted by fighter planes of the Israel Air Force. The Lybian pilot refused to communicate with the intercepting planes or heed their instructions to land. Instead, he turned the plane around in an effort to escape back into Egyptian airspace. Before the plane could reach the Suez Canal, it was shot down, resulting in many of its more than 100 passengers being killed or seriously injured (as it happened, the chief pilot survived).