Sabotage Suspected After Third Israeli Plane Damaged In London In Less Than A Year

A series of incidents at London’s Luton airport has Israeli airline Israir crying sabotage. An Airbus A320 was damaged during towing at London Luton on Thursday, forcing the airline to cancel its scheduled flight to Tel Aviv. What’s significant is that this was the third similar incident involving one of its aircraft at Luton in less than a year, and the airline says airport management has not conducted a proper investigation. British and Israeli security sources say authorities are now examining whether the events intentional and motivated by hostility towards Israel or Jews. Israeli airline Israir is calling on British authorities to investigate a series of incidents that damaged its aircraft, suspecting they may be targeted acts against the airline. The latest happened Thursday at Luton Airport, where a pushback tug struck an Israir plane, forcing… pic.twitter.com/i4mhw29fWP — Elad Simchayoff (@Elad_Si) July 19, 2026 The damaged plane was YR-ADC, a Romanian-registered, 180-seat Airbus A320 was operating for Israir under a wet lease. The flight was already delayed two and a half hours due to a late inbound aircraft before the tug event. The aircraft was released after about 17 hours on the ground, and arrived back in Israel on Saturday. https://viewfromthewing.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/israer-tug-incident-london.mp4 This shouldn’t be a difficult investigation, because identifying the employee in physical control of the tug is an easy first start. There should be an incident report. There’s almost certainly CCTV evidence. Israir Airbus A320, Credit: Oyoyoy via Wikimedia Commons There’s certainly been hostility towards Israel at U.K. airports. I’ve written before about Heathrow screeners wearing Palestinian flags and watermelon badges while screening El Al passengers, singling out of an arriving El Al flight for customs checks, and the detention of October 7 survivors at Manchester as well where an officer invoked Gaza. Luton airport apologized earlier this year when a security officer denounced Israel’s legitimacy to a passenger. At Stansted, Gatwick, and Manchester there have been several other disputes over staff injecting pro-Palestine politics into official passenger interactions. I’d expect also that the tug operator company’s insurance would cover repair of the aircraft, although consequential losses might be contractually excluded. So Israir would still be out hotel, rerouting, passenger compensation, and lost utilization of the aircraft. Passengers on the flight would have been owed £520 apiece under UK261, plus hotels, meals and reaccommodation. If this were provably intentional, an insurer’s liability could increase. Topics on this page