Authorities in the United Arab Emirates revealed that the co-pilot of a FlyDubai flight to Tel Aviv wielded an axe in an attempt to take control of the plane and crash it into the passenger terminal at Israel’s main airport. The incident, which occurred last month, was intended to cause maximum human casualties, especially since most of the 174 passengers on the flight were from Israel.
According to the UAE’s chief prosecutor, the Omani national drew inspiration from the 9/11 attacks and used two previous flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv to familiarize himself with the route and airport. The co-pilot, identified as 29-year-old Hamam al-Hammami, acted alone and provided a detailed confession outlining his motives and planning stages. It was suggested that he was radicalized at a mosque in Australia while studying at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2017.
Despite the thorough security and professional checks conducted by FlyDubai, there were no indications of the pilot’s extremist views or plans for an attack. The crisis unfolded during the flight when Hammami attacked the captain, Smit Machchhar, with a crash axe in the cockpit. Despite being injured, Machchhar managed to alert passengers and crew, leading to the co-pilot’s detainment by passengers and the safe emergency landing of the aircraft at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia.
