Hamam al-Hammami, the Omani co-pilot who brutally attacked the captain of a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv and then tried to crash the airliner last week, wanted “revenge for Gaza”, a television news broadcaster in Israel has reported quoting investigators.
CNN, citing two sources also familiar with the matter, reported the pilot was removed from a job at Oman’s national airline last year. Al Arabiya, citing an informed source, also reported that Omani authorities had determined the co-pilot held extremist views. Currently detained and undergoing interrogation within the United Arab Emirates, al-Hammami informed investigators that his plan involved operating the flight in a routine manner after incapacitating the captain, securing all mandatory landing clearances, and subsequently crashing into an airport facility or stationed aircraft, as detailed by Hebrew media sources cited by The Times of Israel. His actions were thwarted when Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian, despite suffering an assault and stab wounds from al-Hammami, succeeded in unlatching the cockpit portal, allowing a group of Israeli travellers to grapple with and restrain the attacker, while an individual among them steadied the aircraft prior to two off-duty aviators stepping in to assume command of the controls.
The plane was carrying more than 170 passengers and crew, most of them Israeli. The massive Israeli offensive in response has left most of Gaza in ruins and killed more than 74,200 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations. Israeli forces have killed more than 1,440 people since a ceasefire was announced last October, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
That consideration accounted for why al-Hammami delayed seizing control of the flight deck until the aeroplane traversed Jordanian airspace, according to The Times of Israel. The broadcaster said he had spent time in Syria, raising concerns he may have been influenced by radical groups there.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Omani authorities had barred the pilot from flying over suspicions he had adopted radical ideological views, citing people familiar with the matter. ABC News, citing senior intelligence and law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation, reported the suspect had allegedly been found in possession of extremist materials while a trainee. The network also quoted two sources saying a Mossad official told Israeli cabinet ministers on Sunday that the al-Hammami made brief visits in recent years to several countries that are hostile to Israel.
Israel has said it does not believe any other members of the flydubai aircrew were involved in al-Hammami’s attempt to crash the plane, according to Channel 12 news. The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented 2023 attack against Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has said the suspect had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination” and had attempted to crash the plane. Netanyahu has said Israel would check how the co-pilot had been cleared to work on flights to the country. “We have constraints that say that you can’t have pilots from countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel,” Netanyahu told Fox News. Channel 12 news also reported that the Omani co-pilot told his interrogators that he was acting “in revenge for Gaza,” and “I wanted to die as a martyr.
