Wanted to crash plane, not afraid to die: flydubai co-pilot's chilling admission

Hamam al-Hammami, the 29-year-old Omani national, is now being questioned by authorities in the UAE after being brought back from Saudi Arabia, where the flight made an emergency landing following the attack.

In Short

• The flight made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after cockpit violence
• UAE attorney general said the co-pilot attempted to carry out terrorism
• Oman Air had earlier barred him over interest in extremist websites

The flydubai co-pilot who attacked Captain Smit Machchhar told investigators in Saudi Arabia that he wanted to crash the plane and was not afraid of death, according to a Saudi official briefed on his interrogation, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Hamam al-Hammami, the 29-year-old Omani national, is now being questioned by authorities in the UAE after being brought back from Saudi Arabia, where the flight made an emergency landing following the attack.

The UAE attorney general on Saturday said the co-pilot had attempted to carry out a terrorist act. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel are investigating the incident, including whether Hammami had any links to outside powers, according to the WSJ.

Hammami is accused of repeatedly slashing the captain with an onboard crash axe before attempting to take control of the aircraft. The captain eventually managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to intervene.

The flight was carrying more than 170 people when the attack took place.

INVESTIGATORS PROBE RADICALISATION

Hammami was born to an Omani father and a Syrian mother and had lived in Dubai for years. He also spent time in Syria during the country's long civil war.

Investigators are examining whether he began to radicalise while in Syria, where Islamist rebels fought the Assad regime, according to people familiar with the investigation cited by the WSJ.

His online activity is also under scrutiny.

More than 3,000 screenshots of posts from his deleted X account remain available through the Internet Archive. Several posts expressed opposition to women working and a preference for religious women who wear the veil.

In one post from December 2021, Hammami said he had created a fake account pretending to be Syrian or Lebanese to contact Saudi women. In another, he wrote that he had a rule that his wife would not work.

HOW DID HAMMAMI GET HIRED BY FLYDUBAI?

After being barred from flying by Oman Air, Hammami sought opportunities elsewhere. Moroccan state media reported that he tried to join Royal Air Maroc in 2025.

He eventually found work in the UAE, with flydubai hiring him in February this year.

The WSJ reported that the UAE typically conducts extensive security checks when hiring pilots. However, it could not determine what vetting flydubai carried out before employing Hammami.

People briefed on his background told the newspaper that Oman would have shared the information it had about Hammami if it had been asked.

Oman, however, received no requests from other countries seeking information to vet him for employment, the people said.

The UAE and flydubai have declined to comment while the investigation is ongoing.

Hammami had also completed a remote-learning course in aviation management at Buckinghamshire New University in England.

FROM A LOVE OF FLYING TO A MID-AIR ATTACK

The WSJ report sheds new light on Hammami's background, and the questions investigators are now asking about his path from aviation enthusiast to suspected attacker.

In a social-media post from June 2022 that has since been deleted, Hammami wrote in Arabic about his love of flying and described aviation and flight training as anything but routine. He mentioned the significance of a first solo flight and the experience of landing an aircraft carrying passengers.

Hammami studied aviation in the UAE before joining state-owned Oman Air, his first aviation employer.

But people briefed on his background told the WSJ that Oman Air later banned him from flying after authorities became aware of his interest in browsing extremist websites.

He was subsequently put through a deradicalisation programme and assigned a desk job, according to the people familiar with his background.

The episode has raised questions over how Hammami was later able to return to the cockpit and secure employment with another airline.

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