Turkey Refuses To Allow Israel-Bound Flight To Refuel After Medical Emergency – View from the Wing

Turkey Refuses To Allow Israel-Bound Flight To Refuel After Medical Emergency

by Gary Leff on June 30, 2024

El Al’s Warsaw to Tel Aviv flight 5102 diverted to Antalya, Turkey on Sunday due to a passenger with a medical emergency. According to El Al,

El Al flight LY5102 from Warsaw to Tel Aviv made a landing at the airport in Antalya following a medical incident of one of the passengers. After consulting with the doctor who treated the passenger on the plane, it was decided that it should land urgently in order to evacuate the passenger to the hospital as soon as possible.

Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas, non-stop flights between Israel and Turkey have been halted. Passengers were not permitted to deplane and Turkey would not permit El Al to refuel so that it could return to Israel.

Refueling was delayed initially because “permits were required to refuel” which El Al lacked. Then “local workers refused to refuel the El Al plane.” The standoff lasted for hours.

Fortunately the aircraft had sufficient fuel on board to fly to Rhodes, Greece which is 155 miles away. The flight, originally scheduled at 3 hours 40 minutes, will have passengers on board the Boeing 737 for more than 11 hours.

The condition of the passenger with the medical emergency was not known, so I certainly won’t second-guess the decision to put the plane down as quickly as possible – even though that meant Turkey. And I would have thought that even Turkey in a situation like this would take a more humanitarian view. I was wrong.

Turkey is problematic from a human rights perspective, as well as questionable as a democracy. It extracts a tax from NATO and is shaky as an ally. Refusing to allow a commercial airline flight in distress the opportunity to refuel is an abomination, even in the context of the Erdogan regime’s support for Hamas against Israel.

More From View from the Wing