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The Flydubai co-pilot accused of attempting a hijacking told investigators he meant to fly the jet into Ben Gurion Airport or a Tel Aviv high-rise, 9/11-style, reports say. He had reportedly abandoned plans to hijack an earlier Tel Aviv flight because he knew someone on board.
Flight FZ1073 had left Dubai on Sept. 30 when the co-pilot turned the cockpit’s emergency axe on the captain. Passengers tackled him, and an off-duty crew on board took over. They landed the Boeing 737 MAX and its more than 180 passengers in Saudi Arabia.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the people who stopped the attack averted “a 9/11 disaster.” He also said the co-pilot had been radicalized through Islamist indoctrination.
Flydubai later sent another aircraft to take the passengers to Israel. UAE Attorney General Hamad al-Shamsi has described the incident as an attempted “terrorist act.” He said Oct. 3 that results of the investigation will be made public once it concludes.
What did the Flydubai co-pilot plan to do in Tel Aviv?
The plan relied on the flight looking routine, according to sources cited by Israeli media. Once the captain, Smit Machchhar, was out of the way, the co-pilot would stay on course and be cleared to land at Ben Gurion as usual.
Neither Emirati nor Israeli authorities have commented on these accounts.
Several reports have identified the suspect as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani citizen who reportedly studied in Australia from 2015 to 2017. Australia has opened its own inquiry into those ties.
UAE investigators were still interrogating him over the weekend and keeping Israeli officials briefed.
How was the Flydubai co-pilot cleared to fly to Tel Aviv?
Israel has opened a security review over the case. Netanyahu has ordered the head of the country’s National Security Council to examine how flights by foreign airlines into Israel are screened.
The case has also exposed a dispute over who should have vetted the crew. Transport Minister Miri Regev said her ministry never received the passenger and crew lists. She said foreign airlines are the responsibility of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, and the Mossad, its foreign intelligence agency.
The Shin Bet says that job belongs to Regev’s ministry. Regional officials told The Associated Press that the UAE sent Israel the lists before takeoff. Israeli rules also bar pilots from countries with no formal diplomatic ties to Israel, such as Oman, from flying there at all.
There were earlier warning signs, according to regional officials. Oman Air had pulled him from the cockpit and given him office work after flagging his extremist views. Flydubai’s routine background checks, which the officials said don’t look for radicalization, did not catch it.