The co-pilot of an Israel-bound passenger plane stabbed the flight captain with a crash axe as he attempted to carry out a terrorist attack, Emirati prosecutors have alleged.
Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani national, has been named as the suspect and co-pilot of the Boeing 747 Flydubai plane, which had 182 people on board, most of them Israeli nationals.
Passengers and crew stormed the cockpit once it was accessible, managing to overpower the suspect and seize control of the plane during the alleged attempt to crash the Tel Aviv flight on Wednesday.
The plane plummeted about 16,625ft in just over 30 seconds while flying over Saudi Arabia on its journey from the UAE to Israel, according to flight-tracking data from Flightradar24.
Here are the six main things we have found out about the terrifying mid-air incident on flight FZ1073:
‘Axe used in attempted terror attack’
The suspected attacker is now being held in the UAE, where the prosecutor-general said on Saturday that he allegedly attacked the pilot inside the cockpit with a crash axe and tried to seize control of the plane.
A crash axe is usually kept in the cockpit for use during emergencies.
“Investigations into the incident involving Flydubai flight FZ1073 found that the co-pilot had attempted to carry out a terrorist attack,” Emirates News Agency WAM quoted UAE prosecutor-general Hamad Saif al-Shamsi as saying.
The UAE official’s comments were the first by Emirati authorities to describe the incident as an attempted terrorist attack.
Lone wolf?
A Gulf diplomat said investigations are under way to establish whether the suspect acted as a “lone wolf or has any connection with any extremist groups”.
The circumstances around the incident, the potential motives of the suspect and any related connections are being probed, including through examination of physical and digital evidence, the prosecutor-general has said.
The UAE is leading the investigation as the airline is owned by Dubai’s government.
Suspect was ‘barred from flying by Oman’
Hammami, the suspected attacker and co-pilot, was barred from flying by Oman over concerns he had adopted extremist views, a person familiar with the matter told Associated Press.
The co-pilot was subsequently hired by the Dubai airline, the person said.
It was not immediately clear to what extent he was vetted when he was hired in the Emirates.
Oman’s move to bar Hammami from flying was first reported by . According to ABC News, he completed a three-year distance-learning course at Buckinghamshire New University in the UK and graduated with a degree in aviation management in 2023.
Hero captain: ‘I wasn’t going to let others die’
The flight captain injured in the alleged attack has spoken out about how he fought off the suspect and was able to unlock the cockpit door so passengers could get in.
In a video call, Machchhar, 39, from Mumbai, told the Indian Prime Minister, Narenda Modi: “I was lying on the floor injured but I told myself to go for one last push to open the door from inside.
“I was of course fighting for my own life but at the same time I knew I was not going to let others die.”
Speaking from a hospital bed in Abu Dhabi, Machchhar added: “I had so many wounds. I had fallen down. At one point I realized that if I didn’t get up, then passengers would lose their lives.”
Plumber stormed cockpit to subude attacker
One of the passengers who forced his way into the cockpit to thwart the alleged attack said their attempts to open the door were made more difficult as Machchhar had been stabbed and was on the other side.
Yaniv Hayun, 50, said: “One [pilot] was down and one was on the controls. Another person came in with me, I grabbed the assailant and put him in a chokehold, and pulled him out.”
He and a few other people subdued the co-pilot and then he returned to pull up the unmanned steering control of the plane, Hayun said.
“I jumped back, grabbed the controls, and started pulling back the handles,” he added.
Asked how he knew what to do, Hayun, a plumber by profession, said: “I watch [a TV show]”.
British reserve pilot took control to land plane
After passengers overpowered the alleged attacker, two reserve Flydubai pilots who were on the flight took control of the aircraft and landed it 90 minutes later at Tabuk airport in north-western Saudi Arabia, where the co-pilot was detained by authorities.
One of the two off-duty pilots who helped land the plane has been identified by passengers as a British man called James.
Tzvika Manes, an Israeli bank executive and one of the passengers who helped hold the co-pilot down, said they used airline earphones to tie him up.
A source briefed on the investigation told Reuters on Friday that Israeli officials were expected to question the co-pilot in the UAE. The source declined to say which Israeli agency or authority would take part.
An Israeli government official told Reuters that Israeli investigators would take part alongside Emirati authorities in the UAE-led investigation, seeking to determine what happened and examine the suspect’s motives and background.