Secret flights? Maybe not
Netanyahu’s flight to Saudi Arabia was easily traceable online
It was a flight that could have remained under the radar, with its transponder turned off, but the flight taken by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was public. And for a reason.
Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia on Sunday evening along with his military secretary Brig.- Gen. Avi Blut and the head of the Mossad Yossi Cohen.
No one knew of the flight, including Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.- Gen. Aviv Kochavi, until Haaretz editor Avi Scharf, who tracks flights, noticed an “ABSOLUTELY rare Israeli flight direct to the new Saudi mega- city” that was taking place by Netanyahu’s “ex- fav bizjet.”
The flight to the Saudi city of Neom on the San Marinoregistered Gulfstream took off from Israel around 7: 30 p. m. and landed back in Tel Aviv around 12: 30 a. m.
The “secret” flight from Israel to the kingdom had its transponder on the entire time.
If Netanyahu wanted to keep
it a secret, he could have easily done so. He’s done it before, and so have other senior Israeli officials. For years flights in business jets have taken off from Ben- Gurion Airport and flown south toward the Gulf States, and according to some reports, even Saudi Arabia.
The Israeli Air Force has even, according to foreign reports, flown similar flights with senior military officers on board.
But they were all done quietly.
In recent years, flight tracker software and those who enjoy tracking flights have been shared on social media sites like Twitter, “outing” flights that in the past would have remained undisclosed.
Military flights have also been shared, such as the flight of the two American B- 52H Stratofortresses that flew through Israeli airspace on Saturday during a “short- notice, long- range mission”