News

Greek F-16 Fighter Jets Intercept Beirut-Bound MEA Flight

The Lebanese pilot is thought to have used an incorrect radio frequency — a major blunder from the son of the airline’s chairman.

Published

4 years ago

August 16, 2022

Nour Nasir

greek f-16 fighter jets intercept beirut-bound mea flight

Middle East Airlines

A “Code Renegade” alert recently set Greek aviation authorities on high alert following a warning issued by a NATO air control center in Torrejón, Spain. Code Renegade is a distress signal typically used in a hijacking situation. In this case, the code was issued after a Middle Eastern Airlines (MEA) flight bound for Beirut failed to answer calls and went into complete radio silence.

After repeated attempts to speak to the aircraft’s captain, authorities began to worry about the plane’s safety status, which eventually caused Greek air defense to scramble two F-16 fighter jets from Souda to intercept the unresponsive civilian airliner over Argolida in the northeastern Peloponnese.

middle east airlines flight me242 escorted over greece

Lebanon-based aircraft tracker InterSky, took to Twitter to report the details of the unfolding situation:

“Code Renegade set Greek authorities on alert following a relevant signal by the NATO air control center in Spain (CAOC Torrejón), to intercept a non-responsive civil aircraft Airbus A321 with 145 passengers onboard that had taken off from Madrid and was bound for Beirut.”

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In a further twist to the story, contact was eventually reestablished with the aircraft, after which it was revealed that the MEA pilot, Abed Al-Hout, was the son of Mohammed Al-Hout, chairman of the board of directors of Middle East Airlines. The chairman has previously received criticism for employing relatives at various levels of the company, and in this instance, his son had failed to set the communication instruments to the correct frequency, resulting in radio silence.

The news is a further embarrassing blow for Middle East Airlines, which has recently lost over 20% of staff to other airlines, as Lebanon’s financial crisis continues to deepen.

Related Topics:Aviation Lebanon Middle East Airlines

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Samsung And Spotify Offer Free Premium Deal In MENA

Nearly seven in ten streams in the region come from 18-to-34-year-olds — the audience Samsung is hoping to entice into its ecosystem.

Published

6 days ago

August 7, 2026

Nour Nasir

Samsung

Samsung has announced a partnership with Spotify spanning the Middle East, North Africa, and Türkiye, bundling Spotify Premium with select devices across its ecosystem. The headline offer — up to four months of Premium for free — is a first for the region.

Customers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Türkiye who buy any OLED or 98-inch television, or any Galaxy S or Z series mobile device, get four months of Spotify Premium. The offer, tiered by market and device, is available at retail and on Samsung.com, and redeemed through the Samsung Promotion and Samsung Members apps.

For Samsung, the strategy is less about free music than about lock-in. The Korean tech giant’s pitch is continuity: a track starts on a Galaxy smartphone through Galaxy Buds on the commute, moves to a Samsung TV and soundbar in the living room, and stays controllable from a Galaxy Watch. The more seamlessly music travels between those devices, the harder it becomes to swap any one of them for a rival’s.

“Technology should bring people closer to the things they love, and few things connect people the way music does,” said Omar Saheb, Regional VP of Marketing and Online Business at Samsung Electronics MENA. The partnership, he added, gives customers “a genuine reason to choose Samsung for the experience, not only the product”.

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For subscribers, Premium brings the usual package: ad-free listening, offline downloads, richer audio quality on Galaxy Buds and Samsung sound devices, and Jam, which lets friends build a shared queue.

“At Spotify, we are always working to make every listening moment feel more personal, meaningful, and worth it,” said Rami Jamal, Head of Partnerships at Spotify for South Asia, Middle East, and Africa.

The demographics go a long way to explaining the strategy. Across MENA, Türkiye, and Pakistan, nearly seven in ten Spotify streams come from listeners aged 18 to 34, according to the company — precisely the audience Samsung wants inside its hardware ecosystem before buying habits harden.