A "terrorist act" carried out with the (mandatory) emergency ax supplied with the cockpit: this is how the UAE Attorney General, Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, defined the attack which took place last Wednesday on board a FlyDubai plane bound for Israel and forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after the co-pilot injured the captain, before being immobilized by other passengers. The investigations revealed that the co-pilot "had begun to carry out a terrorist act", explained the senior magistrate, specifying that the suspect "attacked the commander in the cockpit using the emergency axe" kept there and attempted "to take the controls of the plane", which was carrying 174 people, mostly Israelis. Israeli officials also cite witnesses who said the co-pilot was "violently hitting" the control panel. The investigation continues "to clarify all the circumstances of the accident and the related reasons", added the investigator.
The prosecutor did not disclose the nationality of the co-pilot - currently in custody in the United Arab Emirates - but various international media have reported that he is 29-year-old Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani father and a Syrian mother, with several years of life spent in the Emirates. The pilot had been banned from flying planes for safety reasons by Omani authorities, who believed he had been influenced by radical Islamist groups during a stay in Syria. The LinkedIn profile apparently linked to his name indicates that he worked for Oman Air for seven years, leaving the company in February 2025, before joining Royal Air Maroc in June 2025, leaving in January 2026, although the Casablanca-based company said that, after a three-month training period, his application to work there was rejected. The page did not mention FlyDubai, where according to CNN he had worked for only eight months, after having unsuccessfully tried to get hired by the Emirates company. According to Britain's Buckinghamshire New University, al-Hammami was enrolled in one of its distance learning courses "in aviation management", but "did not take any pilot training courses".
It was precisely on his alleged LinkedIn profile - later removed - that two posts with terrorist images were published nine hours after the incident: the first, CNN reveals, with footage shot from the cockpit of a Boeing 737 Max (the same type of plane that suffered the attack), with shots of planes of Israeli companies such as El Al, and a photo of Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden, and one of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi - affiliated with al-Qaeda - who killed nine people in 2009, including seven CIA officials and collaborators in a suicide attack. The second post features an AI-generated image depicting the three holiest sites in Islam - Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem - connected by a continuous light trail. In the background, a poem with a defiant tone speaks of the refusal of humiliation, the absence of fear of death and the defense of one's dignity. But it's unclear who made the posts or whether they were pre-planned. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the man had "undergone radical Islamist indoctrination" and "intended to crash the plane with its passengers", warning that anyone involved will pay a "heavy price".
The co-pilot was transferred from Saudi Arabia to Abu Dhabi, which has jurisdiction because the plane is registered in the United Arab Emirates and operates under their flag. Israeli officials, who arrived in the Emirati capital on Saturday, will also participate in the investigation and interrogation. There are several issues still to be clarified. The UAE Attorney General did not explain what the attack would actually have entailed if it had succeeded or what the motivations were. Furthermore, the exact times of the various events that occurred on board are not known, for example at what time the co-pilot took over from the commander. There is also a mystery regarding the presence on board of the two off-duty FlyDubai pilots who then took control of the plane. But the central question is how al-Hammami could have boarded the plane despite a ban on pilots from countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Oman, from operating direct flights to Israel.
