UAE prosecutors say Omani co-pilot tried to crash Flydubai jet into Tel Aviv

Smit Machchhar was already on the cockpit floor, stabbed and injured, when he forced himself toward the door. The attack had come mid-flight on Flydubai flight FZ1073, the Dubai-to-Tel Aviv service of September 30, 2026. His co-pilot, Omani national Hamam al-Hammami, 29, had turned the emergency crash axe on the Indian captain. That axe is kept inside the cockpit for crew use in genuine emergencies.

Machchhar fought back and tried to call for help. From the floor of the locked cockpit he faced the door that sealed the flight deck from the cabin. He set himself to that single effort.

“I told myself to go for one last push to open the door from inside,” Machchhar later said.

He pushed. The door gave way.

Tali Manes was the first in the cabin to register the commotion from the flight deck. Her husband, Zvika Manes, went forward with Yaniv Hayun, Shota Musayev and Asaf Rajuan Hayun put the attacker in a chokehold and pulled him out of the cockpit. Other passengers helped pin him down.

For Almog Itali the sensation was a rollercoaster drop, a massive G-force, the aeroplane falling for twenty or thirty seconds, then balancing, then falling again. The aircraft’s squawk changed from 7700, the general emergency code, to 7500, the signal for unlawful interference or hijacking. After he was subdued the attacker shouted, as Benjamin Netanyahu later recounted, “Kill me, kill me!”

The plane plunged roughly 16,000 to 17,000 feet—about 4,900 to 5,200 metres—in about thirty seconds. More than 170 people were aboard, the passengers overwhelmingly Israeli. The aircraft diverted and landed safely at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia.

UAE Attorney-General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi set out what the investigation concluded the co-pilot had meant to do. Al-Hammami had planned a premeditated suicide attack: seize the jet and crash it into Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport in order to cause the greatest possible loss of life. The design was inspired by al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks, in which nineteen hijackers commandeered four commercial airliners—two flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon in Virginia, and the fourth into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers revolted. He had decided to pursue a career in aviation specifically so that he could carry out a mass-casualty operation of that kind.

This was his third Dubai–Tel Aviv trip. The two earlier flights, investigators found, had been reconnaissance, taken to familiarise himself with the route and with Ben Gurion Airport ahead of the attempt. He confessed to acting alone, a claim the inquiry is still verifying. Benjamin Netanyahu said the captain, the passengers and the second crew “managed to prevent a 9/11 disaster,” and that the suspect “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination.” The public prosecution is reviewing recordings, technical reports and possible connections to accomplices.

Investigators traced the alleged radicalisation to 2017, when al-Hammami was living in Melbourne. He had entered Australia on a student visa in 2014 and spent 2015 to 2017 in the city. In that stretch, according to the findings, he immersed himself in extremist literature and online content glorifying terrorist organisations and suicide bombings, and developed a fixation on the September 11 attacks. He attended a mosque affiliated with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and is alleged to have had contact with a centre run by a Lebanese man known as Abu Hamza, said to have Muslim Brotherhood links. Authorities have not established that either institution took part in the plot. He studied at Melbourne University but did not finish an engineering qualification. After he left the country, his visa was cancelled in 2019.

The Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation are examining those Australian years and any local connections. His working life then moved into commercial flying: Oman Air from 2020 to 2024, a short stretch of training with Royal Air Maroc in 2025, and Flydubai from January 2026. Investigators found he had prepared for the attempt psychologically and physically, viewing material that promoted terrorism and taking boxing lessons.

Those steps put a licensed co-pilot into the right-hand seat. “The findings showed that he had met the professional and security requirements for employment, including holding a pilot's license, providing a certificate of good conduct and completing the required checks,” UAE Attorney-General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said. “However, none of the procedures revealed any indications of his extremist views or his intention to carry out a terrorist plot.”

Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot must have got around restrictions preventing individuals from nations that do not recognise Israel from operating flights to the country. He ordered a thorough review of all security aspects of foreign civil aviation to Israel.

The passengers were repatriated to Israel on a second Flydubai flight hours later. Saudi Arabia opened a separate safety probe into the flight. Al-Hammami remains in custody in the United Arab Emirates while the probes continue. India’s National Investigation Agency filed an FIR in New Delhi under the Anti-Hijacking Act and UAPA after a central government directive. The FIR described the incident as an apparent attempt to hijack or crash Flydubai Flight 1073. “The gravity of the offence, its grave national and international ramifications and the need to unearth the larger conspiracy require a thorough probe by the NIA,” the agency said in the filing.

Machchhar was treated after the stabbing, taken to a nearby hospital and airlifted to Abu Dhabi, where he was reported to be in a stable condition. He spoke from recovery. “I am confident that the recovery will be there and I will become fit and healthy again,” he said. The Indian embassy in the UAE said he was in good health and recovering well.

The plane carrying the passengers who had been on the diverted aircraft arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, on September 30, 2026.