About 100 of the 174 passengers on flydubai flight FZ1073 have signed powers of attorney authorising a steering committee to coordinate compensation claims, the Israeli business daily Calcalist reported on 11 October1. According to the paper, the passengers are organising to seek hundreds of millions of dollars from the airline, the State of Israel and other parties1. The remaining passengers have yet to decide whether to join the group or pursue compensation on their own12. The Times of Israel described the plan as a class action against the airline and the transport ministries of Israel and the United Arab Emirates3. The committee is still meeting law firms and has not yet chosen legal representation1.

On 30 September the Dubai to Tel Aviv flight diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, after the captain, Indian pilot Smit Machchhar, was attacked in the cockpit by the co-pilot; Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry said the captain was "assaulted by his co-pilot"4. CNN has named the co-pilot as Hamam al-Hammami5. Two reserve pilots who were on board took control of the aircraft and landed it in Tabuk6. On 9 October the UAE Attorney General, Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, said in a statement carried by the state news agency WAM that the investigation had found the co-pilot planned an attack on Ben Gurion Airport, and that further findings would follow67. He also said the co-pilot had met the professional and security requirements when flydubai hired him, and that his statement that he acted alone is still being verified7.

Who is behind the claims

The committee is led by Tzvika Manes, chief executive of Barak Leumi, Bank Leumi's underwriting arm, who helped subdue the co-pilot during the flight13. Its members include Tal Eisenberg, a Singapore-based lawyer, and Daniel Schlichter, Itay Perlman and Shir Maor, all of them passengers on the flight1. The effort began in a WhatsApp group of passengers, about 70 of whom asked Manes to lead it1. On 8 October Manes was among six passengers given Israel's Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism8.

After meeting Israeli firms, the committee plans to meet international firms and then present the passengers with preliminary conclusions and recommendations1. Potential defendants named by Calcalist include Israel's Transport Ministry, possibly its Emirati counterpart and equivalent ministries in other countries, because some passengers are foreign nationals1. Calcalist says one challenge for the claims is that the incident itself is unprecedented, because the co-pilot is alleged to have started it1.

What the Montreal Convention allows

The Times of Israel notes that passengers would be able to sue the airline under the Montreal Convention, to which both Israel and the UAE are parties3. Aviation lawyer Boaz Regev told the Israeli business daily Globes that the convention is "the sole track for suing the airline"9. Under Article 17, a carrier is liable for death or bodily injury if the accident that caused it took place on board or during embarking or disembarking10. Article 21 sets two tiers: up to a set amount per passenger the carrier cannot exclude or limit its liability, and above it the carrier is not liable if it proves the damage was not due to its negligence or other wrongful act, or was solely due to a third party10.

The convention fixed that amount at 100,000 Special Drawing Rights and requires the limits to be reviewed at five-year intervals10. Lawyer Shay Ben-Haim told Globes the figure now stands at 151,880 SDR, about $210,000, and stressed that it is "a ceiling" rather than a fixed sum, so each passenger must prove their own damage9. Claims must be brought within two years (Article 35), and for injury a case may be filed in the passenger's country of permanent residence if the airline operates services and does business there (Article 33)10. Regev told Globes that Israel's Supreme Court has left open whether purely psychological harm can be compensated on the accident track, although earlier Israeli precedent recognised such claims, and that the approach in the United States is narrower9.

The Abraham Accords and the suspended flights

Calcalist reports that a preliminary review with law firms found that a section of the Abraham Accords deals with flights between the two countries, and the passengers are examining whether the flight complied with it1. In the 2020 treaty, the two governments recognised as applicable to each other the rights, privileges and obligations of the multilateral aviation agreements to which both are party, in particular the 1944 Chicago Convention11.

Flydubai suspended its flights to and from Israel after the incident, and Emirates suspended its codeshare service between the UAE and Tel Aviv12. On 11 October CTech reported that flydubai will not resume Israel flights on 15 October as planned and has extended the suspension to the end of October, after Transport Minister Miri Regev and Israel's Civil Aviation Authority refused its request to return13. According to CTech, the ministry's position is that flydubai "knowingly and flagrantly violated agreements governing international aviation relations", and it is withholding approval until it receives comprehensive information about the incident13.

Why pilot screening is part of the question

Israel's Transport Ministry told CNN that its procedures do not include checking the names of flight crew members and that its "procedures do not address the threat from a pilot"5. CNN also reported that there is no international standard for background checks, and experts told the network that licences and security passes are handled nationally5. ICAO told CNN that its standards are "under continuous review"5.

What is not yet known

It is not yet clear in which court or country any claim would be filed, which firms will represent the passengers, or whether there will be one collective case or several individual ones19. One of the lawyers Globes interviewed said a class action may be possible but could be difficult because the damage differs from one passenger to another9. The figure of hundreds of millions of dollars comes from Calcalist, while The Times of Israel calculated that the per-passenger estimates in Hebrew media would add up to $43.5 million for all 174 passengers13. The reports by Calcalist and Ynetnews did not include a response from flydubai or the ministries to the passengers' plans12.

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