Jews Galvanize to Aid Passengers of EL AL Flight With Emergency Landing in Canada

Halifax – The Jewish community is galvanizing to help frum passengers aboard an EL AL flight that made an emergency landing in Canada early Friday and are put up in local hotels.

Groceries and restaurants as far away as Cedarhurst and Boro Park quickly packed pallets of kosher food and shipped it to the northeastern Canadian territory. Montreal Jews sent a huge amount of food, along with a volunteer to stay with the stranded fliers over Shabbos.

Flight LY26 took off from Newark at 9 p.m. Thursday and had been scheduled to arrive in Tel Aviv with enough time to spare before Shabbos. But the pilot issued a Mayday call shortly after takeoff due to smoke in the cockpit. The smoke dissipated shortly but the captain decided to make an emergency landing in Halifax out of an abundance of caution.

Passengers were kept on the plane for hours until they were allowed to disembark, at about 2:30 a.m. They finally arrived at their designated hotel four hours later.