Rami Igra, a former head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad’s MIA unit, has said there’s “not much mystery” in the flydubai cockpit stabbing incident of September 30, claiming that “evidence so far” showed it wasn’t just a hijacking attempt aimed at negotiations but possibly something worse. He called the attacker co-pilot, who’s in Saudi Arabia’s custody and has been identified so far by Israel as being from Oman, “a radicalised Muslim”. Igra cited “later reports” to say leaflets supporting the “Palestinian cause in Israel” were found in his belongings, though evidence is awaited.
The co-pilot remains in Saudi Arabia’s custody as the plane landed there after two off-duty pilots on the flight took over. He is likely to be sent to the UAE, from where Israel will seek his extradition as it’s a rare Arab country with which Tel Aviv has formal diplomatic relations. Flight 93 was the only plane of the four hijacked in the 9/11 attack not to hit a target due to the actions of its passengers, though.
He sought to draw a comparison with one of the flights hijacked on September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center in New York was hit.
“If it weren’t for the brave Indian pilot (Captain Smit Machchhar, who was stabbed) and the passengers, we would be looking at a horrible incident in which more than 180 people would have been dead,” Igra told NDTV in an exclusive interview on Friday. The flight he referred to was United Airlines Flight 93, “on which the passengers were reluctant to storm the cockpit, and when they did, it was late, and the flight crashed in Pennsylvania”, leading to the death of 44 people, including four hijackers. Igra further said that the incident leads to fears of “copycat attempts”. This means, he said, that civil aviation security around the world will have to focus on the crew as well, and not just passengers.
