UAE: Flydubai Co-Pilot Planned a 9/11-Style Crash Into Tel Aviv’S Airport

On Friday, 9 October, the UAE Attorney-General published the findings of the investigation into flydubai flight FZ1073. The co-pilot, a 29-year-old Omani named in reports as Hamam al-Hammami, planned to take control of the Boeing between Dubai and Tel Aviv and crash it into the passenger terminal at Ben Gurion Airport “with the aim of causing the greatest possible loss of life.” He is in custody in the UAE and, according to the prosecutor, has confessed.

A post from @visegrad24 that spread quickly on X put the blame on a movement:

“It turns out he was radicalized in Australia by the Muslim Brotherhood.”

— @visegrad24 on X

The official statement is more careful. It says the man was inspired by the 11 September 2001 attacks and had flown to Tel Aviv twice before to study the route and the airport. On 30 September he attacked Captain Smit Machchhar with the emergency axe in the cockpit. The captain, badly hurt, managed to unlock the door, and another pilot, a cabin crew member and passengers overpowered the attacker. Two pilots on the return roster then flew the plane to Tabuk in Saudi Arabia, where it landed safely.

What is known about Australia

The prosecutor says the first signs of extremism appeared in 2017, when the man was studying in Melbourne. The BBC and ABC report that he held an Australian student visa from 2014, lived in the city from 2015 to 2017 and left RMIT before finishing his degree. The Brotherhood claim comes from the suspect himself: Nine reports that he told investigators he attended a mosque linked to the university and met people from an Islamic centre, whose mosque he said was supported by an association tied to the Brotherhood. Authorities have not confirmed that the centre or anyone connected to it played a role. The Australian Federal Police and ASIO are investigating.

Why was he in the cockpit?

The harder questions are about security. Regional officials told the BBC that Oman Air had barred him from flying over concerns about his views and moved him to a desk job, yet flydubai hired him in January after standard checks that did not look for signs of radicalisation. The UAE prosecutor says nothing in those checks showed any extremist views. Israeli rules also say pilots from countries without diplomatic ties, such as Oman, may not fly to Israel. The man remains in custody.