Israel questions man seized on airliner

Not known if hijacking was intent

Officials identified the man as Tawfiq Fuqara.

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VIDEO Security guards overpowered an Israeli Arab as he attempted to hijack an El Al flight en route from Tel Aviv to Istanbul. CNN's Matthew Chance reports (November 18) PLAY VIDEO RELATED El Al secure because it must be

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- A man overpowered by security guards aboard an El Al flight from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Istanbul, Turkey, was in Israeli custody Monday, but whether he was trying to hijack the flight remained unclear.

Authorities in Turkey turned over the man -- identified as Tawfiq Fuqara, a 23-year-old Israeli Arab -- to the Shabac, Israel's general security service, a Turkish official said. Security services had not yet determined what the man's intentions were on the flight, which carried 170 people, the official said.

During the flight, the man, wielding a small penknife, attempted to break into the cockpit of the Boeing 757-200, but security officials thwarted his efforts, El Al said in a statement. El Al said he was an Arab carrying an Israeli passport.

Leslie Schull, who was seated next to the man, said Fuqara appeared "a little bit crazy."

"From the minute he got onto the plane, he was very fidgety, moving around, getting up to go to the toilet, getting up to check his bag in the overhead compartment," said on CNN's "American Morning with Paula Zahn."

Fuqara had been made to wait a long time to get water, but Schull said he did not believe that incident set him off. "I could see that he ... wasn't acting normally," said Schull.

No injuries

Flight LY581 took off at 8:15 p.m. from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport and landed safely at 10:15 p.m. (3:15 p.m. ET) in Istanbul, where police arrested Fuqara. No one was hurt.

It was not clear how the man may have managed to bring a penknife onboard. El Al, Israel's national airline, is considered the most secure airline in the world.

The carrier, which serves about 3 million passengers annually, receives threats daily, as El Al's president noted last year.

"Unfortunately, the system we put in place was not because we wanted to, but because we had to because of our situation, and the threats we get," said David Hermesh, who resigned as president in February.

-- CNN Producer Fatih Turkmenoglu in Istanbul and Correspondents Jerrold Kessel and Matthew Chance in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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