The Italian daily Corriere published an investigation providing a detailed account of the September 30 attempted hijacking of Flydubai flight FZ 1073. According to the report, Omani co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami attacked the captain with an emergency axe, turned off both engines, and forced the aircraft into a dive over Saudi Arabia before Israeli passengers and off-duty pilots intervened and regained control.
The Italian daily Corriere published an investigation on Sunday providing the most detailed account yet of the September 30 attempted hijacking of Flydubai flight FZ 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv. According to the report, Omani co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami attacked the captain with an emergency axe from the cockpit, disconnected the autopilot, shut down both engines, and forced the Boeing 737 into a dive over the Saudi desert. The report states that an Israeli passenger on board, Yaniev Hayon, pulled the yoke back to prevent altitude loss, and two off-duty pilots aboard the flight managed to subdue al-Hammami and restore control by 09:25, roughly five minutes after the assault began. The investigation adds a minute-by-minute timeline to what was already the best-documented aviation security incident in the region.
We reported earlier Sunday (12:04 Jerusalem) that al-Hammami admitted during interrogation his intent to crash in Israeli territory. Subsequent reports we covered (14:25 Jerusalem) specified that he planned to crash into a Tel Aviv skyscraper, based on Israeli intelligence. By 15:39 Jerusalem, we reported that he shut off both engines and attacked the captain with an emergency axe, and the full Corriere timeline was published at 16:24 Jerusalem. This sequence builds on earlier dispatches: on Thursday, an Israeli official told ynet that no link to Iran had been established and the suspect likely acted alone. On Saturday, CNN reported that social media accounts linked to al-Hammami posted al-Qaeda imagery and Israeli aircraft footage. Flydubai and UAE authorities confirmed on Saturday that he used the emergency crash axe. An Israeli investigation team arrived in the UAE on Saturday to question al-Hammami, as we reported.
As The Zioneer reported on the day of the incident (September 30), the event was classified as a terrorist attack by Israeli defense officials. Our subsequent reporting from CBS highlighted that al-Hammami had been flagged for extremist views while at Oman Air and was hired by Flydubai without a background check into his ideological leanings. An Eye on Zion analysis on Sunday contextualized the event as a "lone wolf" plot to crash into a Tel Aviv skyscraper before Israeli air defenses could react, underscoring persistent threats from radicalization in regional aviation.
Several questions remain open. Israeli security officials have not definitively concluded whether al-Hammami acted entirely on his own or received external direction, as noted by an Israeli official on Thursday. It is also unclear who posted two videos to his LinkedIn account nine hours after the attack — whether scheduled by him, posted by another, or automatically queued. The source of his radicalization, including his time in Syria, remains under investigation.
24 developments
- StrongFlydubai, UAE authorities confirm co-pilot attacked captain with crash axe
- DevelopingBen-Gvir: Israel Should Seek Extradition of Flydubai Co-Pilot
- StrongFlydubai passengers tell New York Post: crew asked us to release terrorist co-pilot
- DevelopingN12 publishes cockpit footage from Flydubai flight, shows wounded pilot and passengers' arrest fears
Source and signal
- Open-source intake