El Al passengers flying from Eretz Yisroel to the U.S. spent a night in Iceland last week after an emergency landing. Among the passengers was Rav Meir Tzvi Bergman, renowned rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Rashbi in Bnei Brak and son-in-law of Rav Elazar Menachem Shach zt”l.
Also aboard the flight was Rav Chaim Aharon Tombak, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Keren Orah in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Rav Tombak, a native of Eretz Yisroel, was returning to New York after traveling to Eretz Hakodesh, for his son’s wedding. The passengers – there were 350 of them – were put up in hotels and departed 22 hours later.
The plane landed at an airport in northern Iceland after the flight crew and passengers smelled smoke in the cabin. An Icelandic technician traced the fire to a short circuit in a passenger television screen.
The malfunction was repaired, but Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority did not give the Boeing 747-400 permission to take off for New York, and sent a certified technician to examine the aircraft. Passengers were quite fearful as the pilots manually landed the plane after the electrical system of the aircraft had shut down.
The technician was flown from a European country, and he arrived the day after the emergency landing. The technician did not find any further malfunctions, and confirmed that the cause of the smoke had been repaired.
The Civil Aviation Authority’s insistence on sending its own technician, rather than relying on local services, is connected to the recent lowering of Israel’s international flight safety mark, and the efforts to put Israeli airliners back into the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority’s top category, said a prominent figure in Israel’s aviation sector, according to Haaretz.
The flight eventually landed at JFK Airport in New York.
{Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel}
