He is the Pilot Suspected of Attempting to Crash the Aircraft

American media name the co-pilot on the Flydubai plane. Oman is said to have stopped him from flying due to extremist views.

The co-pilot on the Flydubai plane between Dubai and Tel Aviv allegedly attacked the captain and tried to crash the plane, which made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. About 182 people were on board. Israel is calling it an attempted terrorist attack.

Both The Wall Street Journal and CNN report that the man is Omani citizen Hamam al-Hammami. An Israeli official and Saudi state media have also identified him, according to CNN. The WSJ reports that Oman had previously banned him from flying due to radical views.

CNN also notes that he was born in the United Arab Emirates and lived there for several years. Neither Flydubai, Oman, nor prosecutors have confirmed the name.

The flight was Flydubai’s FZ1073, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, from Dubai to Tel Aviv on September 30. The aircraft reportedly dropped more than 4,000 meters in about half a minute, according to Flightradar24.

Fight in Cockpit or Terror Attempt?

The Israeli government considers the incident as an attempted terrorist attack. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has said it was clearly an attempted terrorist act with jihadist characteristics.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Michal Maayan has called it a serious terrorist incident. Israel’s embassy in Australia wrote that Israel considers it an attempted jihadist terrorist act.

Flydubai calls it a cockpit altercation. That is the airline’s position. The captain and Israeli officials describe an attack in which both ended up bloodied.

The airline states that other Flydubai pilots traveling on the plane took control and landed. The captain, Indian national Smit Machchhar, was seriously injured. He and the co-pilot were transported from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates on Thursday. The captain, according to the airline, has been medically cleared. The co-pilot was arrested in Saudi Arabia.

Israeli officials and the captain describe a different sequence of events. The co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain. The captain, bloodied on the floor, managed to open the door.

Passengers overpowered the co-pilot; one of them righted the plane and two off-duty pilots on board then took control. Whether the weapon was a knife or an axe has not been determined.

The pilots’ bloodbath during the flight. Facsimile X

Previously Banned from Flying

The Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the investigation, reports that Oman had previously banned al-Hammami from flying due to radical views.

According to CNN, he was dismissed from the flight training program at Oman’s national airline because of extremist opinions and was given a different role. Oman has not commented, and it is unclear if the information was shared with others.

Furthermore, he is reportedly born in the United Arab Emirates, with an Omani father and a Syrian mother, and lived in the country for several years.

Pictures of Terror Leaders in Deleted Posts

A deleted LinkedIn profile linked to him by a CNN source reportedly lists seven years at Oman Air until February 2025, then Royal Air Maroc from June 2025 to January 2026. The profile did not mention Flydubai. An Israeli official told CNN he had only worked there for eight months.

CNN reports that the LinkedIn profile had only two posts. Both were published on Wednesday, about nine hours after the incident. It is unclear who posted them, or whether they were scheduled in advance.

The first post contains clips filmed in the cockpit of a Boeing 737 MAX. In one video, which CNN places at Dubai International Airport, a plane from the Israeli airline El Al is zoomed in on. The cockpit screen displays flight number OMA624 and the date October 11, 2023, meaning it was during his time at Oman Air. Other clips show more El Al planes and one from Arkia.

The video ends with a photo of former al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and one of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who killed nine people, including seven Americans, in a suicide attack in 2009. The same two videos were posted at roughly the same time on an Instagram account with the same name and pictures. That account has also been deleted.

The second post is an AI-generated image of Islam’s three holiest sites in Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, connected by a glowing path. CNN also reviewed a deleted Twitter account with nearly 3,000 posts from 2021 and 2022. In it, he, among other things, demands that a prospective wife wear a niqab and stop working.

Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Photo: HO/Scanpix 2011 / Hamid Mir Wikicommons CC BY-SA 3.0

Investigation, No Charges

The Attorney General of the United Arab Emirates has appointed a special investigation team. Its task is to clarify what happened, the motive, and whether there was terrorist crime, planning or command involved. Flydubai has suspended flights to and from Israel while the investigation is ongoing and says the motive is unknown.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the man as radically Islamist but says the motive has not been established. He told CNN that the man had been interrogated in Saudi Arabia and that the UAE’s president, Mohammed bin Zayed, agreed that Israel could participate in the interrogations.

He added that Israel is investigating whether anyone sent the man. But Israeli security sources told Reuters that their initial assessment is that he acted alone and no Iranian involvement has been seen so far.