Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Oct. 1 that the co-pilot who allegedly attempted to hijack a Flydubai flight carrying primarily Israeli passengers on Sept. 30 was an “Omani national” who went through “Islamist radical indoctrination.”
The co-pilot of Flydubai Flight FZ 1073 stabbed the captain, identified as Capt. Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, in the cockpit as the airplane was flying from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on Sept. 30, according to Israeli officials. The co-pilot’s name has not been released.
The aircraft, which was carrying 174 passengers, dropped nearly 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds during the cockpit struggle. Officials have treated the incident as a possible act of terrorism. Netanyahu instructed Israel’s security services to prepare for additional potential threats.
“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 an Oct. 1 interview on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”
The Israeli prime minister said the co-pilot, whom he identified as “an Omani national,” shouted “Kill me” after he was subdued by the passengers and crew members, adding that it was “clear he was suicidal.”
While Netanyahu said he could not make final conclusions yet, he suggested that it looked “very likely” that the rogue pilot intended to crash the plane with everyone on board.
“And if you couple that with what I just told you about the Islamist tendencies, that radicalization that [is] found in his background, I think that’ll give us a pretty good clue,” he said.
Netanyahu offered two possibilities regarding how the co-pilot was able to access a weapon on the airplane. He suggested that the co-pilot might not have passed through a metal detector and could have carried a knife or an ax with him. Netanyahu added that the co-pilot could have obtained an ax from equipment included on the airplane.
Netanyahu told Fox News that the co-pilot was subdued by the Israeli passengers, including an Israeli plumber who he said “broke into the cockpit,” pulled the co-pilot away from the aircraft’s navigation instruments, and helped stabilize the airplane.
After passengers and crew members intervened, a reserve crew was able to land the aircraft safely in Saudi Arabia’s northwestern area of Tabuk.
Netanyahu told “Fox & Friends” that Israel has restrictions preventing pilots from flying to the country if they are from nations that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. However, the Omani national was able to exploit a “loophole” in Israel’s pilot requirements, according to Netanyahu.
The UAE, which owns Flydubai, announced on Oct. 1 that it was launching an investigation of “all circumstances and motives surrounding the incident, including any possible connection to terrorist activity or intent, and whether it involved prior planning or direction.”
Netanyahu told Fox News that Israel is cooperating with the UAE and will be conducting a “very thorough investigation” into the incident.
In a separate interview with Fox News, Netanyahu said the investigation would determine whether the co-pilot had any accomplices and whether Iran was behind the alleged hijack attempt.
Asked whether the co-pilot was linked to Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Oct. 1: “We’re working on it. They’re being very open with us. I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is yes, but we’re working on it right now.”
Trump was also asked whether the co-pilot could have been planted by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or radicalized in a different way.
Trump replied, “Could have been, yeah.”
On Sept. 30, Trump told reporters that he had discussed the incident at length with Netanyahu and that it appeared the co-pilot was “perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack job.”
Friends Read Free
Copy
Facebook
Tweet
