The attempt last Wednesday by the co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv to crash the plane was thwarted, but many of the passengers are still trying to digest what happened to them and to deal with the trauma. We asked aviation law experts what compensation the passengers could be entitled to, and how they can obtain it.
According to US network CBS, the evidence so far is that the co-pilot acted alone, and was not associated with a terrorist organization or a state actor.
Adv. Shay Ben-Haim, who has represented foreign airlines in Israel for over thirty years, explains that a passenger who was on the flydubai flight could be entitled to compensation of $210,000 (NIS 600,000), the maximum liability, depending on the extent of the damage caused to him or her and the evidence presented.
"Under section 21 of the Montreal Convention , the liability of an air carrier is limited to 151,880 special drawing rights, which is currently equivalent to $210,000 per passenger," Ben-Haim says.
"This limited liability is not a fixed compensation sum to which a passenger is entitled in the event of an attack, injury, or death in the course of a flight, but a ceiling, which means that each passenger bears the burden of proving the extent of damage caused to him or her with evidence."
Ben-Haim adds that in certain cases an airline may be liable to more than is provided for in the Montreal Convention. "An airline could be liable to pay compensation over and above the limit if the damage to the passenger is greater than that limit and the airline fails to prove that the damage was a result of negligence or a wrongful act by a third party or by the passenger himself."
Adv Boaz Regev, an expert on aviation law, points out that these cases have a short proscription period, and a claim must be filed within two years of the date of the incident. He says that the incident, the damage, and the connection between them need to be demonstrated. Proving substantial psychological damage entails an opinion from a psychiatrist, and the company’s guilt also needs to be proved.
What is the legal basis for a claim? What is the Montreal Convention, and what does it say?
"The Montreal Convention, which applies in Israel through the Air Transport Law 1980, is the sole track for suing the airline. It cannot be circumvented via a regular torts lawsuit," Regev explains.
"The Convention established two tracks: bodily injury caused by an ‘accident’ on the plane, a hijack and a terrorist attack being considered ‘accidents’; and damage caused by lateness."
Regev relates that in a case in which he represented a couple against Spanish airline Iberia, "the District Court and the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Montreal Convention allows for compensation for non-financial damage, such as distress, on the lateness track, even without physical damage.
"The Supreme Court left open the question whether it would be possible to claim compensation solely for psychological damage on the ‘accident’ track, but Israeli precedent going back to the Entebbe episode recognized this under the previous convention, and the consumerist approach in the Iberia Airlines v. Fleischer Peled case supports this. In the US, the approach is narrower."
Is it possible to sue a foreign airline, and if so where?
"The Montreal Convention applies when two countries (the take-off and destination airports) are parties to the Convention. Flydubai can therefore be sued in the courts in Israel," Ben-Haim explains, and points out that every airline that receives an operating permit from the Israel Civil Aviation Authority must have a representative on whom lawsuits can be served in Israel.
Regev adds: "If the ticket was purchased via another company, that company can be sued as well. The Convention allows a lawsuit to be filed in the destination country of the flight, and for bodily injury in the country in which the passenger is resident as well. Israeli passengers can therefore sue Flydubai in the Israeli courts."
Can the lawsuit be filed as a class action on behalf of all the passengers, or does each passenger have to sue privately?
"It may be possible to file a claim as a class action, but the claimants are liable to have difficulty in proving similar damage, and so to the extent that the damage is different from one passenger to another, it may be worthwhile filing separate lawsuits.
"In my view, this case is not very suitable for a class action, as the damage caused to each passenger is not necessarily the same, but should an application for recognition as a class action be filed, it cannot be ruled out that it might be approved as such by the court."
What is the precedent that matches the facts of the case?
The case that has a certain similarity to the Flydubai incident is the Entebbe operation in 1976, in which Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked after a stop in Athens, and was forced by the hijackers to deviate from its planned course and to land at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Almost all the passengers were later rescued from the place in which they were held hostage. Only after several years did they decide to sue Air France for the psychological damage caused to them and for the suffering they had undergone. The suit, however much it may have been justified, was dismissed, because of the short, two-year proscription period, which had passed by the time the lawsuit was filed.
"I allow myself to assume that had the lawsuit been filed in a court in Israel within two years of the date of the incident, no-one would have doubted that it was not proscribed, and that the right to sue existed," Judge Dov Levin said at the time.
Later in his judgment Judge Levin wrote, "There is no obstacle to including hijackings in the definition of the term ‘accident’," and that "From the point of view of judicial policy, it is appropriate to interpret section 17 [of the Warsaw Convention, which the Montreal Convention largely replaced] broadly, such that by virtue of it it will be possible to award compensation for psychological damage alone."
Is there any other way of suing over a terror incident?
Ad. Regev responds positively. "The Victims of Hostile Actions (Pensions) Law, 1970 applies to Israeli citizens even if they are harmed overseas. It entitles people to medical treatment, rehabilitation, and allowances from the National Insurance Institute, including for psychological disability such as post-traumatic stress disorder. The condition is that the Ministry of Defense recognizes the event as a ‘hostile action.’
"For an event overseas, that requires, among other things, that the action was carried out by a hostile state or organization or to promote their aims, or was directed at Israel or at Jews. That determination depends on the findings of the investigation. When the circumstances point towards that with a fair degree of probability, the law assumes that it was a hostile attack. This track does not preclude a claim against an airline, and there is a mechanism for coordination between them."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 4, 2026.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.