NBC News reports that an Air Canada flight into Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel’s largest, was forced to temporarily abort its landing today after Hamas fired rockets into the area. Several airlines suspended service to Tel Aviv on Tuesday after a rocket landed in an adjacent suburb, but many have subsequently resumed flights. From NBC:
The Boeing 767 was just five miles from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport when it was advised by air traffic control to keep flying “until airspace conditions could be confirmed as safe for landing,” Air Canada spokeswoman Isabelle Arthur told NBC News. After altering course, Flight AC84 landed 10 minutes later at 12:07 p.m. local time (5:07 a.m. ET). The jet originated at Toronto’s Pearson airport.
Hamas says it fired three rockets at Ben Gurion Airport; it’s not clear whether the Air Canada flight was affected by these rockets or a subsequent false alarm or abundance of caution.
As Slate’s Joshua Keating wrote Tuesday, the security of Ben Gurion Airport is crucial to Israel’s effort to keep its tourism and business sectors “well-insulated” from Gaza-related violence, while the downing of Flight MH17 in the Ukraine has likely made airlines (and passengers) especially conscious of the dangers of flying in war zones.
