Pilot refuses to fly with Israeli pilot on board

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.

Melchior, who was being escorted by State Department officials, told Israel Radio that he waited on the plane on 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 yesterday.

“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.”

The Israeli radio station did not identify the subsidiary airline that Melchior planned to fly with.

Melchior 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.

Officials with the Atlanta-based airline would not discuss the incident. “We don’t comment on our security incidents,” Delta spokeswoman Catherine Stengel 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.