Modern day piracy on the high seas has long been a problem off the Gulf of Aden, with Somali pirates targeting vessels large and small in search of plunder. But now such piracy is spreading to the air, with a fascinating new practice of deception targeting commercial airliners.
Somali Pirates Target Airliners
The context of this story is an El Al flight from Phuket (HKT) to Tel Aviv (TLV) on Saturday night, February 17, 2024. Per El Al, “hostile elements” attempted to commandeer the communication network of the aircraft and force a diversion while the aircraft was flying over the breakaway region of Somaliland.
The crew was given new routing instructions that deviated from their planned route. That sparked concern that someone or something was trying to lure the aircraft into a bad area, perhaps even to conduct a hijacking attempt. While some El Al aircraft are equipped with anti-missile systems, this incident was similar to the sort of “emergency” that led a Ryanair flight to divert to Minsk, Belarus (MSQ) so that dissident journalist Roman Protasevich could be arrested.
After consultation, the crew disobeyed the air traffic control instructions and switched to a different frequency for communication. It later emerged that another El Al flight, bound for Bangkok (BKK) was also targeted in a similar manner.
It was widely reported that Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen or Islamists in Somalia deliberately targeted the El Al aircraft in an attempt to bring it down. But those initial reports do not appear to accurately capture the situation. Rather, this sort of in-air piracy has been going on a lot lately and targets virtually every commercial airliner that flies over this airspace.
The Jerusalem Post reported that has El Al has downplayed the incident, noting that it was not specifically targeted via an unnamed employee:
“[I]n Somalia, there have been communication interruptions all week, not only for El Al planes, and the official authorities have issued instructions to all pilots that as soon as this happens with a certain frequency, not to listen to the instructions and to switch to another communication method.”
El Al later issued an official statement, also downplaying the incident:
“The disturbances are not aimed at El Al planes and that this is not a security incident. The disruption did not affect the normal course of the flight thanks to the professionalism of the pilots who used the alternative means of communication and allowed the flight to continue on the planned route.”
But even if this is a trick as common as the Nigerian Prince scam, it does represents bold new frontier for pirates: the air. Pilots of all stripes must be on guard when traversing this region.
CONCLUSION
A pair of El Al flights were targeted by pirates in Somaliland with nefarious intentions. El Al has determined that this was not a targeted threat against the Israeli carrier, but a threat every aircraft flying over this airspace is vulnerable to.
The thought that pirates continues to operate in 2024 is always an eye-opener, but their expansion from the sea to the air is particularly fascinating.
Eric Cartman’s idea?
I have to say that Somaliland, Somalia, etc., is somewhere I have zero desire to visit.
Agreed with NedsKid. Matthew, are you still interested in going there to get a cup of coffee? Just wondering.
I am.
How do pilots distinguish between an approved air traffic control transmission and one generated by artificial intelligence mimicking the voice of the ATC person?
Good question for 121pilot.
In this case the instructions were absurd.
Israeli planes over the red sea will always fly straight over the sea, knowing there’s hostile land on both sides. Any other instruction is obviously fake.
Generally, I don’t know.
When MH370, suddenly cut off from ATC, some of the conspiring theorists linked it to Somalia. I know it’s a stretch, but could this have been some less advanced attempt then?
I taxied past this 787 on the way to Singapore on Friday night. Wow, I didn’t realise there’d be such a story to the next flight this 787 would take.