Oman just exposed FlyDubai's biggest vetting failure in its history

FlyDubai put an Omani man in the cockpit on the Tel Aviv route.

His own country had already grounded him over extremism concerns.

FlyDubai never checked.

Three days ago, that man is accused of stabbing the captain mid-flight and trying to crash the plane.

Here's everything we've confirmed since.

The co-pilot is Hamam al Hamami, 29. The flight was FlyDubai FZ1073, Dubai to Tel Aviv. The captain, Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, was stabbed inside the cockpit — but he still managed to unlock the door.

Passengers got in. So did two off-duty pilots who happened to be on board. Together they overpowered al Hamami, and the crew made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

174 passengers and eight crew were on that plane. Nobody was seriously hurt.

Now here's the part that's blown this open.

Two days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Oman had barred al Hamami from flying over concerns he'd adopted extremist views. Fox News, CBS News and the Associated Press have all since confirmed it, through their own reporting.

So who is he?

Al Hamami trained as a pilot with Oman Air. In 2024, the airline found he'd been visiting websites tied to extremist views. It grounded him. It moved him to a desk job instead of sacking him outright.

CBS News first reported he was later fired for those views. Then the outlet added a note saying he'd actually resigned after being put on desk duty. That detail still hasn't been cleared up.

Either way, he left Oman Air in 2024. He moved to Dubai that same year.

And FlyDubai hired him.

According to the Wall Street Journal, FlyDubai never checked with Oman Air about his background before putting him on the payroll. The Associated Press says it still isn't clear how much vetting, if any, FlyDubai did when it hired him.

Here's why that's so hard to believe.

FlyDubai flies its own planes into Muscat and Salalah, in Oman. It operates in the exact market where this ban was already in place.

And there's another layer to this.

Israel doesn't let pilots land there if their passport is from a country Israel has no diplomatic relations with. Oman is one of those countries. FlyDubai still put an Omani national on the one route where that rule actually applies.

Al Hamami is Omani, but he wasn't born there and spent most of his life outside the country. His mother is Syrian, his father Omani. Israeli officials initially wondered if he held a second nationality — that might explain how an Omani passport-holder ended up flying into Israel. They've since ruled that out.