Co-Pilot's Mid-Air Axe Attack: How Passengers Stopped a Dubai-to-Tel Aviv Flight From Crashing
Investigators say an Omani co-pilot tried to crash a Flydubai jet carrying 174 people, mostly Israelis, before the captain and off-duty pilots fought him off.
A Flydubai co-pilot armed with the cockpit's emergency crash axe tried to kill everyone aboard a packed jet bound for Tel Aviv, Emirati investigators disclosed this week, in an attack the captain says he is lucky to have survived.
The attacker, identified by authorities as Omani citizen Hamam al-Hammami, assaulted Flydubai captain Smit Machchhar inside the flight deck mid-flight and tried to seize the controls, according to UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi. The flight, carrying 174 passengers — most of them Israeli — had taken off from Dubai International Airport bound for Tel Aviv.
Machchhar fought off his co-pilot long enough to unlock the cockpit door. Passengers and cabin crew then swarmed in and wrestled al-Hammami to the floor, while two off-duty pilots who happened to be traveling on the flight took over the controls and diverted the aircraft to an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
"I WAS ACTING FOR MY OWN LIFE, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, I KNEW I COULDN'T LET ALL OF THEM DIE."
That's Machchhar, speaking from his hospital bed after being treated for stab wounds, in comments relayed by CBS News. No passengers were seriously hurt.
A Red Flag Missed
Al-Hammami had previously been barred from flying by aviation authorities in his native Oman over concerns he had embraced radical ideological views, according to NBC News. How he nonetheless ended up in a Flydubai cockpit is now central to the UAE's investigation, which has since transferred him to custody in Abu Dhabi.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacker "underwent Islamist radicalization" and "came to crash the plane, along with its passengers," per NPR's reporting. Investigators have so far found no evidence tying the plot to Iran or any state sponsor, even as the region remains gripped by the ongoing Israel-Iran war.
The incident unfolds against the backdrop of that eight-month-old war, which has already forced carriers to reroute around closed airspace and driven up insurance costs for Israel-bound flights. While officials stress this attack appears to be the work of a radicalized individual rather than a state actor, it lands at a moment when security services across the Gulf are already on high alert.
Al-Hammami faces terrorism and attempted murder charges in the UAE; a court date has not yet been set.