Oman's co-pilot just tried to crash a jet into Tel Aviv airport
1 hour ago · 6 October 2026Share
An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft in flight over Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.KirkXWB · CC BY-SA 4.0
An Omani co-pilot spent months planning to crash a passenger jet into Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport.
And he told investigators he picked his employer just to get there.
Here's what happened. A week ago, on 30 September, the co-pilot attacked the captain of flydubai Flight FZ1073 with the cockpit's emergency crash axe. The flight was going from Dubai to Tel Aviv.
He's been identified by multiple outlets as Hamam al-Hammami, a 29-year-old Omani national.
The captain was Smit Machchhar, an Indian national. He survived.
But during the struggle, the plane dropped hard. Reports vary — somewhere between 14,000 and 16,000 feet, in about 30 seconds. Then the jet turned and made an emergency landing at Tabuk, in Saudi Arabia.
Roughly 174 passengers were on board, most of them Israeli. About 180 people in total, counting the crew.
Saudi authorities detained al-Hammami. Then he was handed to the UAE, into custody in Abu Dhabi. The UAE's Attorney General, Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, said he had tried to carry out what he called a terrorist act.
Now the interrogation details are coming out. And they show this was planned long before that flight.
Al-Hammami told investigators he planned the whole operation before flydubai even hired him. He says he searched for airlines that flew to Tel Aviv, then applied to the Dubai-based carrier on purpose.
He says quote "I planned the operation even before I was accepted by the company."
So think about that. A co-pilot choosing his job around one target.
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Airplanes at Ben Gurion International Airport, the target airport mentioned in the story. File photo. Chenspec · CC BY-SA 4.0
He joined flydubai about eight months before the attack. Before that, he trained for three months with Royal Air Maroc in 2025. They didn't take him on. Before that, he flew for Oman Air — where he was barred from flying one to two years ago, over concerns about his views. He was moved to an admin role instead.
And this wasn't even his first attempt.
He had flown an earlier flydubai route to Tel Aviv back in July. He allegedly meant to crash that one too. He backed out — reportedly because of a personal connection to someone on the crew.
So by his own account, September was at least his second try, after months of planning.
Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says the co-pilot went through what he called Islamist indoctrination, and that he was clearly suicidal. Images of al-Qaeda figures, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, turned up on social media accounts linked to him.
But here's the thing. Investigators haven't found a network behind him.
Israeli officials and a Gulf diplomat briefed on the investigation say they've found no link to any extremist group or foreign government. They think he most likely acted alone. Israeli security officials and separate regional officials say they've found no Iranian involvement either.
Which leaves a harder question. Not who helped him. How he got through hiring at all.
His own national airline had already flagged and barred him over his views. He still went on to train with one foreign carrier, then join another, flying international routes — including, more than once, the route to Tel Aviv.
He also studied abroad. Six months in New Zealand on a student visa in 2018 and 2019, for flight training with a UK-based company. Study at RMIT University in Melbourne, roughly 2015 to 2017. And a distance-learning aviation management degree from Buckinghamshire New University, finished in 2023, with no pilot training involved. Australian authorities, including a joint counter-terrorism team with the federal police and the intelligence service, are now looking into his time there.
Neither flydubai nor UAE authorities have officially confirmed his identity. No government has said exactly what in his record should have stopped him being hired, or flying this route, after Oman had already grounded him once.
Here's what isn't in question. A jet with around 180 people on board. A co-pilot who chose his job specifically to fly it. And an airport he had been planning to hit for months.
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