The copilot who tried to hijack a flight bound for Israel on Wednesday used a crash ax located in the cockpit to attack the plane’s captain, officials from the United Arab Emirates said Saturday.
Attorney General Hamad Saif 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.
The alleged attacker has been identified as Omani national Hammam al-Hamami, according to an Israeli official and another person familiar with the matter, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Al-Hamami had been banned from flying in a previous position with Oman Air because of concerns about his radical views, the person familiar with the matter said. He was instead placed in a desk job, this person said, but left the company soon after.
It was not immediately clear whether FlyDubai, the Emirati airline operating the flight on which Wednesday’s incident occurred, was aware of the alleged radical views. The Wall Street Journal first reported that the copilot had been banned from flying with Oman Air.
The crude nature of the attack and the new allegations regarding the copilot are likely to raise new questions for regional governments, given how close to disaster the incident appeared to come.
FlyDubai Flight 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv lost half its altitude in less than two minutes on Wednesday when the captain, Smit Machchhar, was allegedly attacked by his copilot in the cockpit.
During the attack, Machchhar was able 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, while the pilot and the copilot were hospitalized.
The UAE statement answers one of the questions over potential security lapses that emerged following the incident: how the copilot was able to access a weapon 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 copilot” in the cockpit, said Chan, who is now a senior lecturer in aviation operations at the U.K.’s Kingston University.
The ax is located in the cockpit “for emergency access reasons,” Chan said, adding that he thinks reviewing the screening measures in place for pilot recruitment is the key to preventing future attacks.
Machchhar, the captain who was wounded during the attack, has been lauded as a hero for resisting the attacker and fighting to open the cockpit door.
“When I was lying there on the floor, I could feel that the aircraft was plunging,” he said during a phone call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “And I knew that it would be the last push.”
He willed himself to open the door to the cockpit, which allowed other passengers to rush in and apprehend the assailant, and off-duty pilots to regain control of the plane.
Cockpit doors on modern aircraft are hardened barriers designed to keep hijackers out, making them almost impossible to breach from the outside.
Machchhar’s actions have been credited with saving the lives of those on board, and Chan said that pilots were likely to be trained to immediately open the door in the event of any cockpit altercations from now on.
The new details about the copilot may place strain on the relationships between Israel and Arab Gulf countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates, a key signatory of the U.S.-backed Abraham Accords which seek to normalize relations with the Jewish state.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said the co-pilot was “suicidal” and “underwent Islamic radical indoctrination.”
Suzan Haidamous contributed to this report.
The post FlyDubai copilot used crash ax to attempt ‘terrorist act,’ UAE says appeared first on Washington Post.
