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The co-pilot at the centre of an attempted hijacking aboard a flydubai passenger jet intended to fly the aircraft into Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport or a tall building in the Israeli city, according to accounts emerging from US and Israeli officials. The suspect, identified in multiple reports as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani national, has been described as a "lone wolf" extremist who appears to have acted without direction from any organised group or foreign state.
The allegations relate to flight FZ1073, which departed Dubai for Tel Aviv last Wednesday carrying more than 180 passengers aboard a Boeing 737 MAX. According to the United Arab Emirates' attorney-general, the co-pilot launched what was characterised as a "terrorist act" during the journey, striking and injuring the captain with the emergency crash axe stored inside the cockpit. He was ultimately subdued by passengers, and a separate crew member who happened to be travelling on the flight was able to take control and divert the aircraft to Saudi Arabia.
Details of the alleged plot continued to surface over the weekend as the co-pilot remained in Emirati custody for questioning, with Israeli representatives reportedly receiving regular updates on the progress of the investigation. Israeli media, citing sources familiar with the probe, said the suspect told interrogators that after incapacitating Capt Smit Machchhar he intended to continue operating the flight normally, maintaining the appearance of a routine approach so that he could obtain landing clearances from Ben Gurion airport.
Once inside Israeli airspace and cleared to land, the co-pilot allegedly planned to dive the aircraft into the airport itself or into a tower block in central Tel Aviv, mimicking the tactics used by al-Qaeda in the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States. The same sources indicated that investigators believe he most likely acted alone, rather than at the behest of a radical organisation or a foreign government.
The co-pilot has also reportedly confessed to considering a similar attack on an earlier flight bound for Tel Aviv, but abandoned the plan after realising that he knew one of the people on board. That admission, if confirmed, suggests the alleged intent may have predated the incident by some time and raises further questions about how someone harbouring such intentions could have continued to operate on Israeli routes.
Neither Emirati nor Israeli authorities have issued immediate comment on the specific details attributed to the investigation. UAE Attorney-General Hamad al-Shamsi said on Saturday that his country's inquiries would establish the full circumstances, motives and any connections tied to the incident, and that the findings would be made public once the investigation concludes.
Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said the co-pilot underwent "Islamist radical indoctrination," and credited the captain, passengers and the second crew member with preventing what he described as a "9/11 disaster." His remarks underscored how close Israeli officials believe the flight came to catastrophe, and framed the episode as a narrowly averted mass-casualty attack rather than a contained onboard disturbance.
Attention is now turning to a series of apparent security failures, beginning with how the attacker came to be recruited by flydubai and granted clearance to operate a flight carrying Israeli passengers into Tel Aviv. Regional officials have said the co-pilot was previously barred from flying by Oman's national carrier, Oman Air, and reassigned to an administrative role because of concerns about his extremist views. He was subsequently hired by the UAE-based budget carrier flydubai after undergoing standard security screening that did not examine his background for signs of radicalisation.
Israeli aviation regulations add another layer of complication: pilots who hold citizenship of countries without formal diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Oman, are not permitted to operate flights into the country. The fact that the co-pilot was at the controls of a service bound for Tel Aviv therefore raises questions about oversight and enforcement of those rules.
There is also disagreement over who was responsible for screening the people on board. Regional officials told the Associated Press on Sunday that Emirati authorities had shared a list of passengers and crew with Israel before flight FZ1073 departed. Israel's Shin Bet domestic security agency responded that the transport ministry bears responsibility for vetting such lists supplied by foreign airlines, while Transport Minister Miri Regev insisted her ministry never received passenger or crew lists and that security oversight for foreign-operated flights fell to the Shin Bet and the Mossad foreign intelligence agency.
Amid the competing accounts, Netanyahu has directed the head of Israel's National Security Council to review "all security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel," a move that signals potential changes to how incoming flights and their crews are assessed.
The investigation has also taken on an international dimension. Australian authorities are examining the co-pilot's connections to the country, with sources telling local media that he studied there between 2015 and 2017. That line of inquiry could shed light on his movements and associations in the years before he joined flydubai, and whether any warning signs were visible during that period.
For flydubai, the incident poses serious reputational and operational questions, particularly around recruitment vetting and the sharing of security information with destination countries. For Israel, it has exposed potential gaps in the layered defence system that governs foreign carriers flying into Ben Gurion, one of the country's most sensitive entry points. As the UAE's inquiry continues and Israeli officials await its conclusions, the case is likely to intensify scrutiny of how airlines, regulators and intelligence agencies coordinate on threats posed by individuals who operate largely undetected inside the aviation system.
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