Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani co-pilot, attacked the captain of the Dubai–Tel Aviv flight with a cockpit crash axe before passengers overpowered him; Israeli and US reports say he intended a 9/11-style impact at Ben Gurion airport or a tower block, and vetting failures are now under scrutiny.
The attack
The UAE attorney-general, Hamad al-Shamsi, said the co-pilot attempted a “terrorist act” on flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv last Wednesday. Multiple reports name him as Hamam al-Hammami, a 29-year-old Omani national.
Captain Smit Machchhar said in a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu that the flight had been routine until his co-pilot asked to pray; Machchhar turned forward out of respect, and “suddenly, after four or five minutes, there was a big blow to the back of my head.” The captain was wounded. The aircraft briefly entered a steep descent before an off-duty crew member travelling as a passenger and passengers overpowered the attacker, and the plane was landed in Saudi Arabia while it was still over Jordanian airspace. More than 180 passengers were on board.
Netanyahu said the co-pilot had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination,” and that the captain, passengers and a second crew member prevented “a 9/11 disaster.”
The alleged plan
Israeli media, citing sources with knowledge of the investigation, reported that Hammami told investigators he intended to keep flying as normal into Israeli airspace, obtain landing clearance from Ben Gurion airport, and then crash the Boeing 737 MAX into the airport — or into a tower block in central Tel Aviv — in the style of the 11 September 2001 attacks. The Mirror reports he described it as his “dream.”
He also reportedly said he had intended to hijack and crash an earlier flight to Tel Aviv but abandoned the plan because he knew someone on board. Sources quoted in the reports say he most likely acted alone rather than on behalf of a radical organisation or a foreign state. Emirati and Israeli authorities have not formally commented on these claims, and the attorney-general said investigations would establish “the full circumstances, motives and any links,” to be published on conclusion.
That lone-actor assessment is not yet stable. A statement praising the foiled hijack and urging further attacks on aircraft carrying Americans and Israelis has circulated among al-Qaeda-aligned channels, and Breitbart reports evidence of the suspect’s apparent affinity for such propaganda. Praise after the fact is not direction — but it is why “lone wolf” should stay in quotation marks until the UAE publishes findings.
The vetting failures
The harder story for the industry is how he came to be in that seat. Regional officials said Oman’s national carrier, Oman Air, had barred Hammami from flying and moved him to an administrative role over concerns about extremist views. He was subsequently hired by flydubai after what the officials described as standard security checks that did not examine his background for signs of radicalisation.
Israeli aviation regulations separately state that pilots holding citizenship of countries without formal diplomatic relations with Israel — Oman among them — are not permitted to operate flights into the country.
Both rules appear to have failed simultaneously. Emirati authorities reportedly shared a passenger and crew manifest with Israel before FZ1073’s departure. Israel’s Shin Bet said the transport ministry is responsible for vetting such lists from foreign carriers; Transport Minister Miri Regev said her ministry was not given the lists, and that oversight of foreign-operated flights falls to the Shin Bet and the Mossad. Netanyahu has instructed the head of the National Security Council to review “all security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel.”
Australian authorities are investigating Hammami’s links to Australia, where sources told local media he studied between 2015 and 2017.
What it changes
Three questions will define the aftermath. Whether cockpit-door and crew-relationship protocols need reform, given that the attack began with a co-pilot asking to pray and the captain stepping back out of courtesy. Whether air marshals should be embedded on routes to high-risk destinations, where diplomatic screening of crews is the only barrier. And whether aviation security’s global vetting standard — designed around criminal records, not ideological indicators — can detect radicalisation at all.
The industry’s assumption that the person in the right-hand seat is the last line of defence has been broken, in the air, by someone who knew exactly what the procedures were.
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