Israel-Palestine conflict: US pilot denies flying plane over ‘security situation’

Amidst the growing Israel-Palestine conflict, a United Airlines pilot denied flying the plane to the Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel, from Newark Airport. This resulted in the flight to be delayed for 24 hours, a report stated. Apparently, the pilot refused to fly to Tel Aviv “because of the security situation”. Not only this, the flight was in the process of boarding passengers when the ground staff informed those still waiting at the gate that the flight would not depart on schedule. Initially, the passengers were told that the delay was due to “crew refusal”.

However, the airline later said that the flight has been cancelled due to “flight curfew” in Israel after the recent spree of rocket attacks and “in light of the security situation,” leaving passengers confused, as no such curfew was announced by the Middle-Easter country.

@united flight UA84 postponed to tomorrow morning citing crew refusal. Wonder why the crew couldn’t think about refusing before dragging hundreds of people to the airport. — Gil Eyal (@gileyal) August 6, 2022

The flight UA84 began boarding and a couple of passengers entered the aircraft when they were informed to disembark. Once back in waiting area, the initial communication given to the passengers by the ground staff was that the pilot refused to fly to Israel because of the security situation.

One passenger named Gil Eyal, tweeted about the incident, asking United Airlines’ official Twitter account for an explanation. The flight UA84 later departed for Tel Aviv after more than 24 hours delay and landed safely.

For the last couple of days, more than 500 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip. However, despite safety threats to flights, Ben Gurion Airport authority altered the flight paths to and from Israel ensuring commercial airlines could continue to operate safely.