Co-Pilot Planned to Crash Flydubai Plane Into Airport or US Military Base: Israeli Security Officials

Israel says the investigation into the co-pilot who attempted to take control of a Flydubai flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel on Sept. 30 has raised suspicions that he intended to turn the aircraft into a weapon and fly it into Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. 

Senior Israeli security officials have told Epoch Magazine Israel that Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani national, had visited Israel in June and originally planned to carry out a suicide attack during that trip.

The following month, he planned the aircraft hijacking attack, but postponed it because, according to security officials, he felt sorry for one of the crew members, whom he knew personally.

The officials said that on Sept. 30, al-Hammami deliberately waited until Flight FZ 1073, which had 174 mainly Israeli passengers on board, reached the Jordan–Saudi Arabia border area before attempting to seize control.

Planned to Pose as Routine Flight

His intention was allegedly to continue flying toward Israel as though it were a routine flight, reach Ben Gurion Airport, and then crash the aircraft into the airport grounds, officials said.

If he was unable to reach Israel, his backup plan was to crash into a U.S. military base in Jordan, the officials added.

It was not immediately clear whether al-Hammami has legal representatives who could comment on his behalf.

The UAE prosecutor general said on Oct. 3 that al-Hammami attacked the captain, Smit Machchhar, with a crash axe and tried to seize control of the aircraft in an attempted terrorist act.

The plane dropped nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds during the cockpit struggle, terrifying those on board.

Machchhar told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an Oct. 2 video call that he managed to save the plane after a struggle with al-Hammami.

“I knew that the aircraft was going down … I had fallen to the ground,” Smit Machchhar told Modi, “I told myself that the door is right there, ‌just open ⁠it. I managed to do it, and people entered.”

After passengers and crew entered the cockpit and overpowered the co-pilot, two reserve pilots on board took control of the aircraft and requested permission to land in Jordan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Oct. 1 that it was very likely the co-pilot intended to crash the plane and everyone on board, in an echo of 9/11.

“The attacker, the co-pilot who attacked the captain, is now being interrogated, but here’s what we do know: First, we know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” Netanyahu said in a Fox News interview.

Netanyahu said the co-pilot shouted “Kill me” after he was subdued by the passengers and crew members, adding that it was “clear he was suicidal.”

Netanyahu has said pilots from countries with which Israel has no diplomatic relations, such as Oman, are not permitted in the cockpits of flights to or from Israel.

It is unclear how al-Hammami ended up on the Dubai-Tel Aviv route, and Netanyahu has ordered a review of foreign airline crews flying to or from Israel.

A counterterrorism ⁠unit in Australia is investigating al-Hammami’s links to the country after it emerged he was once enrolled at RMIT University in Melbourne.

Reuters contributed to this report.