UAE Officials Report Alleged Extremism of Flydubai Co-Pilot

The Flydubai flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia after passengers managed to take back the aircraft's controls. The Omani co-pilot who allegedly attempted to hijack a Flydubai plane began a "drift towards extremism and terrorism" while studying in Australia, according to United Arab Emirates officials. UAE Attorney-General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi stated that the pilot, identified as Hamam al-Hammami, attempted to crash the plane into Tel Aviv's airport in a "suicide attack". He reportedly wounded the captain in the cockpit with an emergency crash axe before being overpowered by passengers, allowing another crew member to land the aircraft in Saudi Arabia. Melbourne's RMIT University confirmed that the pilot had studied there but left before completing his engineering qualification. The incident, which occurred on September 30, transformed a routine flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv into a struggle for survival when one pilot allegedly attacked another inside the cockpit. According to Shamsi, interrogations of the 29-year-old pilot revealed that he had been inspired by al-Qaeda's September 11 attacks in the US in 2001. "The findings indicated that signs of his drift towards extremism and terrorism first emerged in 2017, while he was studying in Australia," the attorney-general was quoted as saying by the UAE's state news agency Wam. "During that period, he was influenced by takfiri [radical] ideology through reading extremist literature and following online content glorifying terrorist organisations and suicide attacks." The Wam report also stated that the pilot had informed investigators that he had prepared himself both psychologically and physically to carry out the plot by intensifying his exposure to material promoting terrorism and training in boxing under a private coach. He claimed to have acted alone, although investigations are ongoing to verify this assertion. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the man was issued an Australian student visa in 2014 and studied in the country from 2015 to 2017 before departing. This week, the Sydney Morning Herald revealed tweets from al-Hammami's now-deleted X account, in which he referred to his five years studying abroad in Australia, Britain, and New Zealand as "the golden years of my religious commitment." More than 170 passengers and crew were on board flight FZ1073. In the days following the incident, Australian authorities confirmed they were investigating the man's links to Australia. The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team, which includes the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Victoria Police, and the country's security agency ASIO, stated it was "investigating the man's links to Australia." Indian co-pilot Capt Smit Machchhar has been recognized for his actions in unlocking the cockpit door while being violently attacked, allowing passengers to intervene. Questions have arisen regarding security lapses, including how the attacker was recruited by Flydubai and cleared to operate a flight filled with Israeli passengers. Regional officials noted that the co-pilot had been barred from flying by Oman's national carrier, Oman Air, due to concerns about his extremist views and was later hired by Flydubai after standard security checks that did not assess his background for potential radicalization. Israeli aviation regulations prohibit pilots from countries without formal diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Oman, from operating flights to the country.