El Al Flight 002 was supposed to leave JFK at 6:30 p.m. for the 12-hour journey, but because of bad weather, several crew members were delayed, and boarding only began at 8:30 p.m. By approximately 9:10 p.m., boarding was complete and preparations were being made for takeoff. But by 10 p.m., passengers on the still-grounded plane began to demand to disembark so they could spend Shabbos in New York. The aircrew subsequently asked them to sit down so the plane could return to the gate and they could disembark. Instead, the plane lined up for takeoff, taking to the air at around 11:45 p.m.

Another plane that left from JFK to Tel Aviv around the same time was originally supposed to land in Rome, but was allowed to continue to Israel (at the direction of Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef) because of a sick passenger on board.

By Friday night, Israeli secular media were reporting that religious passengers had behaved violently toward the stewardesses, and tried to break into the cockpit. But Akiva Katz, a kashrus-industry consultant sitting in a premium seat where the exchanges took place, rejects this story.

“First of all, no one touched the staff,” he said. “At the worst, they were shouted at — by religious people as well as by secular people. As for passengers trying to break into the cockpit, I saw what happened. I was standing next to a secular businessman who was talking to the pilot by phone from outside the cockpit.”

At the root of the matter is that El Al wasn’t transparent, Katz said. “The aircrew were delayed by a snowstorm, but we all managed to deal with the same snow. And instead of being open with us, they kept telling us that we were going to leave soon.”

But according to another passenger, El Al was also outright deceptive. Rabbi Sholom Ber Sorotzkin, head of the Ateres Shlomo network of yeshivos in Israel, said through his assistant Avi Raful that flight crew told passengers the plane would arrive in Israel at 3:20 p.m., an hour before Shabbos began.

“When Rabbi Sorotzkin pointed out that the onboard flight map showed an arrival of 4:20 p.m., they turned off the system [so passengers could no longer view it],” said Raful.

It was only two hours before landing that the passengers were told that they would be spending Shabbos in Athens.

“They didn’t update the passengers about their plans at all,” said Raful.

What prevented an emergency Shabbos in Athens from descending into a Greek tragedy was the amazing work of the local Chabad shaliach, Rabbi Menachem Hendel and his wife, who pulled out all the stops to cater for 150 people at a hotel next to the Athens airport at a few hours’ notice (see sidebar). (Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 736)