Flydubai Attack Was Planned Before the Co-Pilot Was Hired

The Flydubai attack that sent flight FZ1073 into a terrifying dive on September 30, 2026 was planned before the co-pilot was ever hired by the airline, according to explosive new reporting by Reuters published on October 5, 2026. Two Israeli officials familiar with the investigation told Reuters the co-pilot admitted to interrogators in the United Arab Emirates that he had applied to the Dubai state-owned carrier after searching for airlines that fly to Tel Aviv.

That single admission reframes the entire Flydubai attack. If the account is accurate, the man in the right-hand seat was not an employee who snapped mid-flight — he was an attacker who acquired a uniform, a cockpit, and repeated access to one of the most heavily guarded airports on earth. And the September 30, 2026 flight may not have been his first try: a third source briefed on the UAE probe said the co-pilot had operated a flight to Tel Aviv earlier in 2026 and meant to hijack and crash that plane too, but backed out. The source said he is believed to have known someone on that earlier flight.

All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation. UAE and Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment, and neither did flydubai. The Flydubai attack suspect remains in UAE custody, no formal charges have been announced against him, and Reuters said it could not independently reach him for comment.

How the Flydubai attack was allegedly planned

According to the two Israeli officials, the co-pilot told interrogators the plan came first and the job second. He applied to flydubai after researching which carriers operated routes to Tel Aviv, the officials said — effectively turning a job application into reconnaissance. The alleged target was Ben Gurion airport: the third source said he planned to crash the September 30, 2026 flight into the airport in what would have been a deliberate strike on arrival.

In other words, the Flydubai attack looks less like a breakdown than a long infiltration. He had been working at the airline for roughly eight months before the flight, according to earlier reporting — months of unremarkable service that, in hindsight, gave him repeated opportunities to study security routines and the approach into Tel Aviv's main airport.

The account also casts his earlier Tel Aviv flight in a darker light. A pilot who balked once and then returned to the same route had time to study what went wrong — and what might work next time. Investigators have not explained why he abandoned the first attempt, beyond the possibility that a familiar face on board gave him pause.

Minute by minute on September 30, 2026

Flight-tracking data gives a cold, precise picture of the Flydubai attack as it unfolded that morning. The Dubai-to-Tel Aviv service, carrying 174 people, was about two and a half hours into its journey when the co-pilot attacked the captain with an emergency crash axe — a tool kept in the cockpit for cutting through the airframe — and tried to seize the controls.

• 05:21 GMT — the steep descent begins.
• 05:28 GMT — the transponder switches to squawk 7700, the international code for a general emergency, near the Saudi-Jordan border.
• 05:33 GMT — the jet levels out near 15,000 feet.
• 05:35 GMT — the code changes to 7500, reserved for unlawful interference.
• 05:44 GMT — a distress call reaches controllers in Tabuk.
• Shortly before 07:00 GMT — the aircraft lands safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Passengers and crew forced their way through the cockpit door, which the wounded captain had managed to open, and subdued the co-pilot. A reserve crew member — an Indian pilot traveling off duty — helped regain control of the aircraft, and was later hailed as a hero by the prime ministers of India and Israel. Everyone survived the Flydubai attack; the captain underwent surgery for severe injuries.

What the Flydubai attack still hasn't answered

The biggest open question about the Flydubai attack is who exactly the co-pilot is — and whether he acted alone. Two news outlets have identified him as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani national, but the UAE authorities and flydubai have not publicly confirmed his identity, and Oman has not commented. Reported fragments of his past include a three-month theoretical training period with Royal Air Maroc in 2025 that did not lead to a job, and distance-learning aviation management study at Buckinghamshire New University in the UK. On October 4, 2026, Australian federal police said a joint counterterrorism team was examining his links to Australia, where he reportedly studied around a decade earlier.

On motive and backing, the official picture is split. On October 3, 2026, UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi gave the first official account of the incident and classified it as a "terrorist attack." But according to a News7tv report citing an Israeli official who spoke to CNN, the Israeli probe so far suggests the co-pilot acted alone, with no known link to any group or government — though the investigation is still running.

Into that uncertainty stepped politics. US President Donald Trump suggested a possible Iran link, saying only that it was "based on what I'm hearing," without offering evidence — a claim that remains entirely unsubstantiated and cuts against the Israeli probe's early findings. The Iran angle also lands in the middle of already-fraught American diplomacy with Tehran, including the recently rejected Iranian ceasefire proposal.

Investigators are also examining whether the co-pilot tried a second way to bring the plane down. Italy's Corriere della Sera, via Ynet, reported that investigators are looking into whether he moved the jet's two engine fuel switches from "Run" to "Cutoff" after the axe attack failed. During the Flydubai attack, he had already pushed the aircraft into its steep dive — the fuel-switch question suggests he kept improvising even as passengers fought back.

The Germanwings comparison — and what airlines must answer now

Aviation experts are drawing the unavoidable parallel. In March 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people aboard, after investigators concluded the co-pilot had deliberately flown the jet into the mountainside. The disaster rewrote cockpit rules across much of the industry: many regulators and airlines began requiring two authorized people in the flight deck at all times and tightened psychological screening. The Flydubai attack tests those rules against a different threat — not a pilot in crisis, but one who allegedly took the job with hostile intent.

That exposes a gap no checklist anticipated. Israel's transport ministry has already acknowledged one: passenger and crew names were shared with Israeli authorities before the flight took off, but crew members were not subject to the same screening as passengers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has longstanding arrangements meant to keep pilots from countries without diplomatic ties — Oman among them — off flights into the country, and called this case the exposure of a "loophole." Israel has since ordered a review of security procedures for foreign civil aviation.

For now, the co-pilot sits in UAE custody awaiting formal charges, while investigators in the UAE, Israel, and Saudi Arabia pick apart how the plan survived the hiring process. Whether the Flydubai attack becomes a turning point for airline vetting worldwide will depend on what those probes conclude. This story sits at the intersection of aviation security and regional conflict — follow our full war topic coverage for the latest developments.