UAE Calls flydubai Co-Pilot's Axe Attack an Attempted Terrorist Act

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2026 — The United Arab Emirates said Saturday that the co-pilot of flydubai Flight FZ1073 attempted to carry out a 'terrorist' attack when he assaulted his captain with a crash axe mid-flight on Wednesday — the first time Emirati authorities have described the incident in those terms.

UAE Prosecutor General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, quoted by the state news agency WAM, said the co-pilot attacked the pilot inside the cockpit with a crash axe and attempted to take control of the aircraft. He said investigations are ongoing into the circumstances of the incident, the motives and any related connections, and the examination of physical and digital evidence.

Flight FZ1073 was traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, September 30, when — about two hours into the flight — the co-pilot turned on Captain Smit Machchhar. The co-pilot has been identified by a source with direct knowledge of the matter as Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani national, according to Reuters; UAE authorities did not immediately confirm the identity.

What happened next came down to the people in the cabin. Passengers and crew members subdued the co-pilot, and a reserve flydubai pilot who was traveling on the flight took the controls and landed the aircraft at Tabuk airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia. Saudi authorities detained the co-pilot there. There were 182 people aboard the flight, 166 of them Israelis.

Captain Machchhar has been hailed as a hero — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised him publicly. The Israeli passengers were flown back to Tel Aviv after the emergency landing. An Israeli government official told Reuters that Israeli investigators will take part alongside Emirati authorities in the UAE-led investigation, which will examine what happened as well as the suspect's motives and background. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel was looking into whether the co-pilot had acted under anyone's direction, warning that anyone involved would pay a 'heavy price.'

flydubai said the circumstances surrounding the incident were still under investigation and that it was not in a position to comment further.

The attack has already rippled beyond aviation. President Trump told reporters this week that early indications link Iran to the incident — a claim he did not detail, and one no official investigation has confirmed. We noted the claim in Friday's nightly news wrap; it remains the president's assertion, not an established fact.

What investigators are piecing together now is not just what happened in the cockpit but how a man with Hammami's history ended up in it. Hammami — reportedly born around 1997 in the UAE to an Omani father and a Syrian mother, holding only Omani citizenship — had previously flown for Oman's national carrier, Oman Air, where he was removed from flight operations and reassigned to an administrative role over concerns that he exhibited extremist views, according to multiple reports. He was later hired by UAE-based flydubai in 2026 — a hire now under intense scrutiny, with investigators examining the extent of the vetting conducted before he was cleared to fly. He completed a three-year distance-learning course in aviation management at Buckinghamshire New University in England in 2023; the university confirmed he did no pilot training there. CNN reported that a deleted LinkedIn profile bearing his name was updated with two posts roughly nine hours after the incident — one featuring video clips filmed in a Boeing 737 Max and ending with a photo of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the former al-Qaeda leader killed in a 2022 U.S. drone strike. His Instagram account remained active until the day of the flight, when it was deleted. Authorities say they are investigating whether he was a lone actor or connected to any extremist group.

The geography of the flight matters too. Flight FZ1073 was a Dubai–Tel Aviv service, one of the direct links that have grown since the UAE and Israel normalized relations — and Israel maintains policy agreements with foreign carriers restricting pilots from countries without formal diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Oman, from operating in Israeli airspace. That policy is now part of the wreckage investigators are sifting through, alongside a harder question: how did a co-pilot flagged by one national airline end up holding a crash axe inside the flight deck of a 737 carrying 166 Israelis?

The aftermath is already spreading across three countries' agendas. In the UAE, Prosecutor General Al Shamsi's designation of the incident as an attempted terrorist attack marks a sharp escalation from flydubai's initial description of an "altercation" in the flight deck; the airline has temporarily suspended flights to Tel Aviv at the authorities' request while teams assist affected passengers. Israel is treating it as a national-security matter: Israeli investigators will join the UAE-led probe, Netanyahu has warned that anyone involved will pay a "heavy price," and Jerusalem is looking into whether the co-pilot acted under anyone's direction. President Trump told reporters this week that early indications link Iran to the incident — a claim he did not detail and no official investigation has confirmed. We flagged that claim as unconfirmed in Friday's nightly wrap, and it remains the president's assertion, not an established fact. Meanwhile Captain Smit Machchhar — who opened the cockpit door while badly wounded, letting the cabin intervene — has been hailed as a hero, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi praising him publicly. For more on aviation incidents this week, see the Coast Guard search off Nantucket.