Delta pilot refuses to fly Israeli diplomat
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:30 a.m. ET [Auigust 11, 2002]
CINCINNATI (AP) -- A pilot for a Delta Air Lines subsidiary would not fly Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior from Cincinnati to Toronto because the pilot thought Melchior posed a security risk, an Israeli radio station reported Sunday.
Melchior, who was being escorted by State Department officials, told Israel Radio that he waited on the plane Friday for more than an hour before the pilot evacuated it, saying there was a security risk.
When Melchior disembarked, he said he was told he was not allowed to get back on the plane.
"The security officials and the company all put pressure on him, and there were negotiations,'' Melchior told the station. "But the pilot is sovereign on his aircraft, and he is empowered to make such a decision, and he did it in spite of all the pressure from the company and security officials.''
He said he flew out on another Delta plane about a half-hour later. He has since returned to Israel.
The Israeli embassy in Washington had taken the matter up with the State Department, Melchior said.
This is the third time an Israeli official has been pulled from a flight because of a pilot's sense of a security risk, the radio station reported. The others reportedly were Alon Pinkas, the Israeli consul general in New York, and a bodyguard of Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
"This singling out of Israeli diplomats ... and removing them from a plane in such a manner, and the very fact that we are Israelis (is deemed) to pose a security risk, is intolerable,'' Melchior said.
Atlanta-based Delta, which has a hub in Cincinnati, is the nation's third-biggest carrier. A message seeking comment was left early Sunday morning at the Delta corporate communications office.
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What is left unsaid is what was the nature of the perceived security risk. A possibility would be that the Deputy Foreign Minister was being escorted by armed Israeli bodyguards, or armed personnel of the State Department's Office ofv Diplomatic Security.