The pilots of an Arkia Airlines flight from Eilat in southern Israel continued to land at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport last week even as rockets fired from Gaza were intercepted by Israel’s sophisticated ‘Iron Dome’ missile defense system all around it.
Passengers onboard the plane, as well as witnesses on the ground, captured photos and videos of the scene as the rockets were intercepted, but pilot Captain Eyal Birk says he only chose to land the packed passenger plane because it was safe to do so.
“We are, unfortunately, accustomed to this type of situation for several years. There are clear procedures in place for such incidents, explained Captain Birk in an interview with Israeli news site Ynet.
“We were in the final stage of landing, facing south, and in the distance we saw what looked like very dim rocket launches. We estimated it was something in the southern area of Israel,” Birk explained.
It turns out that the rocket barrage was heading towards central Israel and Tel Aviv in particular. By the point the pilots realized the rockets were headed towards Israel’s most populous city, however, the plane was only 15 seconds away from landing.
“We discussed this in the cockpit, but we didn’t believe it would affect us in any way. On the same day, there had already been two launches toward central Israel. We proceeded with the landing as usual, and about 15 seconds before landing, we realized it was a heavy barrage toward Tel Aviv,” Birk continued.
“We started seeing Iron Dome interceptions around us and, given the situation and our circumstances, we decided to continue the landing”.
Birk had two options… either climb to a safe distance out of reach of the rockets or continue to land. Having assessed the situation and realizing that the rockets weren’t directly above the aircraft, the pilots decided the safest option was to continue to land.
Ben Gurion Airport is relatively well protected by Iron Dome batteries, although the risk of rocket fire from Gaza and even Lebanon has been enough for the vast majority of foreign air carriers to withdraw from Israel.
In the case of the Arkia flight, Captain Birk says the rocket interceptions looked a lot more dramatic than what they actually were. Birk did not, however, want to be drawn on how close he thought the rockets were from the aircraft.
They were close enough, though, for the airport authorities to temporarily shut the runway to carry out a sweep for rocket debris.
