Knowing nothing about who these people were other than generic "Israelis" I can say ahhh, Israelis.

Way back when, in the olden days of January 2010, there was an incident on an airplane in which a young man lay tefillin while inflight and began davening. He did not respond to questions, because he was in the middl eof services, and ended up being arrested for questioning, as he was suspected of being involved in some sort of terror plot. Neither the passengers nor the flight attendants were familiar with what tefillin are, and they suspected he was wrapping himself in explosive wiring.

Even though the story was strange, it involved a flight to a small city, and perhaps they don't have many Orthodox Jews on such flights, so it can be understood a bit that nobody would recognize the tefillin for a non-terrorist, religious paraphernalia that they are.

According to Bechadrei, an Orthodox Jew flying from New York to Boston this past Monday had a similar experience. he stood up to say the shmoneh esrei, while wearing his tefillin, and other passengers saw what they deemed to be suspicious activity. They alerted the flight attendant, but the fellow ignored questions directed at him from the FA, as he was in the middle of his silent service.

When the plane landed he was immediately escorted off the plane by the police and taken for questioning.

I did a basic search on google and could not find any more information about this incident from other sources. They all point to the January incident, and not knowing any more details makes filtering the info difficult.

Another stupid incident. The Jewish guy acted stupidly. in today's day and age where the airlines in America are scared of terror and are very sensitive (think of the "If you touch my junk I am going to call the police" incident that happened the other day while going through airport security), he should have known better than to draw attention to himself like that.

As well, the flight attendants seem to be pretty stupid. A major flight route from NY to Boston is very likely to regularly have orthodox jewish passengers, and I am sure this was not the first time anybody will have seen tfillin on such a route.

Brains, people. Brains.

Is there really a flight attendant anywhere in America that has not seen Jews put tefillin on during a flight and doesn't know what they are? Really? I thought America is such an enlightened country!

The BBC description is pretty funny:

CBS News said a passenger had strapped a wire device from his fingers to his head after takeoff. He was taken into custody after landing, it added.

I guess the stewardesses ignorance can't be helped, or blamed on anybody, as the guy did nothing wrong. But at least he is described as being "non-disruptive, totally polite and of course didn't make any threats to anyone.."

Addition: I was just thinking that this guy wearing tefillin caused the plane to divert and make an emergency landing. Perhaps, and nobody has any way of knowing (so you can't contradict me), this is an example of the Gemara in Nidda 31a that describes how frequently Hashem performs miracles for people, saving them from calamity, in ways that they are not even aware of. The gemara there describes a guy who missed his ferry. Later the boat sank. Perhaps the plane was diverted in order to avoid some calamity, in the merit of this guy who performed his mitzva diligently.

After the recent attempted terror attack by a Nigerian on an airplane over Detroit, America flipped out about airline security. The methods employed by US airlines was compared to the methods employed by the Israelis. Who didn't see the videos of the Israelis explaining how the Israeli system works looking for suspicious activity rather than screening random people or targeting specific items (like drinks). And who had not read the articles that spread virally discussing, ad nauseum, the same issues.

It turns out that that was all a bluff. That is not why the Israeli airlines are so safe. It's got nothing to do with the specific security measures employed by the Israeli airlines.

The new director of El Al went to meet with Rav Chaim Kanievsky. Rav Kanievsky gave him a bracha, and they sat and discussed various aspects of kashrut and hilchos shabbos relevant to the airlines and flights.

During the conversation, Rav Kanievsky stated, and repeated, that it is clear that the reason they enjoy such a level of safety is because they are protected extra because El Al keeps shabbos. (source: Kikar Shabbos)

Check this out.

A 22 year old yeshiva student was late for his plane. When he got there they already closed the terminal and would not let him on. He said, in an attempt to convince them to let him on, that his brothers funeral was the next day and he had to be on the flight (the article does not say if this was true or not).

The employee did not let him on, so he went to a phone and called in a bomb threat.

He was sentenced to pay a $1,000 fine, wear an electronic monitoring bracelet while confined to his home for six months and perform 200 hours of community service.

Talk about stupid.