The UAE Says the FZ1073 Co-Pilot Planned to Crash Into Ben Gurion’s Terminal, and Passed Every Flydubai Hiring Check

The co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073 planned to seize the Boeing 737 MAX 8 and crash it into the passenger terminal at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, the United Arab Emirates Attorney General said on Friday, October 9, 2026. The statement says he used two earlier flights to Tel Aviv to learn the route and the airport.

It also says he met every professional and security requirement flydubai checked when it hired him in January 2026. “None of the procedures revealed any indications of his extremist views or his intention to carry out a terrorist plot,” Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi said.

What the Attorney General’s statement says

The statement, carried by the state news agency WAM, gives prosecutors’ most detailed account yet of the September 30 flight from Dubai. It says the 29-year-old intended to carry out a suicide attack “with the aim of causing the greatest possible number of casualties.”

According to the statement, he drew inspiration from the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the idea of using an aircraft in the same way was connected to his decision to pursue a career in aviation. September 30 was his third flight to Israel.

Prosecutors say he gave a detailed confession with his lawyer present and told them he acted alone. Al Shamsi said investigators are still checking that claim, including whether anyone helped plan or facilitate the attack.

UAE authorities have not named him. Reuters and AP, citing people with knowledge of the case, have identified him as Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani national, Al Jazeera reported.

How the attack was stopped

The statement says the co-pilot surprised Captain Smit Machchhar in the cockpit and attacked him with the emergency axe, which the Attorney General first described on October 3. The captain fought back and tried to call for help.

A flydubai pilot assigned to fly the return leg was on board and near the cockpit. “He noticed the cockpit door repeatedly opening and closing in an unusual manner, which aroused his suspicions,” the statement says, as reported by Ynet.

He tried the door’s access code, got in and found the attack under way. With a crew member and several passengers, he subdued the co-pilot, and the return-leg captain and his co-pilot landed the jet at Tabuk in Saudi Arabia.

That sequence is the reverse of what the reinforced cockpit door was built for after 9/11. The door keeps a threat in the cabin away from the pilots, but on FZ1073 the threat was already inside, and help could only reach the captain once the door was open.

What airline vetting can and cannot catch

The prosecutors examined flydubai’s recruitment and found he held a valid pilot’s licence, provided a certificate of good conduct and completed the required background checks. A certificate of good conduct is a police record check: it can show a criminal record, not a person’s beliefs.

His earlier employers are where questions remain. Senior officials told ABC News that as an Oman Air trainee in 2024 he was found with extremist materials and kept on in an administrative role. Oman Air did not immediately respond to ABC’s request for comment.

Royal Air Maroc has said he completed three months of theoretical training with it in 2025 as part of its pre-employment process, and that his application was then rejected. It did not tell ABC why.

Nothing published so far shows whether those concerns were shared with flydubai or with UAE authorities before he was hired.

Europe tightened pilot screening once before, after a Germanwings co-pilot locked his captain out in 2015 and deliberately flew the jet into a mountainside, killing all 150 people on board. EU Regulation 2018/1042 requires airlines to put flight crew through a psychological assessment before they start line flying.

That rule covers EU operators, not a UAE carrier, and it was framed around mental health. FZ1073 raises a different question: how an airline spots a pilot whose risk is ideological rather than medical.

The Australian investigation

The statement traces his turn toward extremism to 2017, when he was studying at RMIT University in Melbourne, and links it to people he met through a mosque there. RMIT has confirmed he studied engineering but did not complete his degree, ABC News Australia reported on October 12.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team has been investigating the suspect’s links to Australia since they came to light. The imam of the mosque named in the statement referred to “false accusations” in a social media video but did not directly address the allegations.

Flydubai’s latest statement says a full official investigation is under way and that its flights to Tel Aviv are suspended until further notice, at the request of the authorities.