The co-pilot of a flight bound for Israel had been praying before he took a crash ax in the cockpit and began to strike the captain, hitting him several times and putting the plane into a sharp descent in an attempted terrorist act, according to officials and new accounts that emerged on Saturday.
The alleged attacker on FlyDubai Flight 1073 has been identified as Omani national Hamam al-Hammami, according to Yossi Avraham Shelley, Israel’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.
Al-Hammami was “dismissed from Oman Air” and later departed from another airline, Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc, Shelley said. “He has flown to Israel in the past, including recently,” Shelley said, with FlyDubai, the budget airline owned by the Emirati government.
A person familiar with the matter said that al-Hammami had specifically been blocked from flying planes for Oman Air because of his radical views. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said that the pilot had been placed in a desk job because of these views and that he had then resigned.
The person did not give details about those views, and it was not immediately clear whether FlyDubai or the Emirati government, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment, were aware of this. Israel’s Transportation Ministry said Saturday that it does not receive the names of the FlyDubai aircrew in advance, and that it receives a declaration from foreign airlines that their crew members have undergone security clearance.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that the co-pilot was “suicidal” and “underwent Islamic radical indoctrination.” A spokesperson for Netanyahu told The Washington Post this week that the co-pilot had talked on “social media about killing Jews.”
Social media accounts that appeared to belong to al-Hammami on LinkedIn, Instagram and X were suspended on Saturday. CNN reported Saturday that two videos were posted to a LinkedIn account associated with al-Hammami hours after Wednesday’s attack that included al-Qaeda imagery and videos of planes operated by El Al, Israel’s national airline. It was not clear who posted the videos, CNN reported. The Post could not independently confirm the posting of these videos.
An account on X under al-Hammami’s name that also matched other parts of his known biography appeared to regularly post messages that showed hard-line religious views, according to a review of thousands of archived messages. Those included arguing against women’s rights, as well as others calling homosexuality a pervasion. X did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The developments have strained relations between Israel and Persian Gulf nations, particularly the UAE, a key signatory of the U.S.-backed Abraham Accords, which seek to normalize relations with the Jewish state.
The attack comes weeks before a bitterly contested Israeli election, in which Netanyahu is facing renewed questions about his handling of national security issues before the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Netanyahu has denied one bombshell report that he was delivered a warning from UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan that Hamas intended to attack Israel.
FlyDubai Flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv came perilously close to disaster. The flight lost half its altitude in less than two minutes on Wednesday when the captain, Smit Machchhar, was allegedly attacked by his co-pilot in the cockpit. The flight had 182 people on board.
Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, attorney general of the UAE, said Saturday that the attack involved a crash ax that was already in the cockpit. Al-Shamsi described the attack on the pilot as an attempt to “take control of the aircraft” and carry out a “terrorist act,” according to a statement published by the official Emirates News Agency.
Machchhar, an Indian national, gave a firsthand account to Netanyahu during a call Saturday, telling the Israeli leader that his co-pilot had been praying before the attack. A video of the call was posted to social media by Netanyahu’s office.
Machchhar told the prime minister that he was hit in the back of the head after about four or five minutes of the co-pilot praying, and that his first thought was that it was damage to the aircraft before he realized he was being attacked.
As the blows continued, Machchhar said he realized that it was “not the aircraft, it’s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me.”
Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door, enabling passengers and crew members to take control of the Boeing 737 Max and make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, according to accounts from passengers. The passengers were unharmed, and the pilot and the co-pilot were hospitalized.
Al-Hammami’s ban from flying with Oman Air, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, led to him being given a desk job with the airline in 2024. “He left Oman Air because of that,” the person familiar with the situation told The Post.
The next year, he worked for a period with Royal Air Maroc, Morocco’s national carrier, which said in a statement to the Associated Press that he had “completed a three-month theoretical training period with the airline in 2025, as part of the preemployment process,” but that he was not “selected for employment” afterward.
Israeli officials have said the alleged attack on the FlyDubai flight was ideologically motivated. Officials from Israel’s Transportation Ministry on Saturday appeared to place the blame on FlyDubai and security in the UAE, telling reporters in a call that they should have conducted background checks on the pilot, and that a pilot from Oman — which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel — should not have been allowed to fly a plane to Tel Aviv.
No terrorist organization has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. The alleged use of a crash ax also suggests there was no need to smuggle weapons on board.
A crash ax is normally used for emergency evacuations, Marco Chan, a former pilot, said in an interview. “If none of the exit doors are available, the pilot can … use the ax to crack” designated parts of the plane’s structure, which are designed to open more easily to create an exit route.
In current Boeing 737 planes, the crash ax “is usually located just behind the first officer or co-pilot” in the cockpit, said Chan, now a senior lecturer in aviation operations at Kingston University in the United Kingdom.
The ax is in the cockpit “for emergency access reasons,” Chan said, adding that reviewing the screening measures for pilots could help prevent future attacks.
Suzan Haidamous contributed to this report.
The post FlyDubai co-pilot used crash ax to attempt terrorist act, UAE says appeared first on Washington Post.
