We now have a name and a little more background on the attacking co-pilot on FlyDubai flight 1073, and none of it is good.

The co-pilot has been identified as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani citizen, though his origins seem to be a little more muddled than that. According to CNN, al-Hammani was born in the United Arab Emirates to an Omani father and a Syrian mother, and has spent “several years” living in the UAE. However, it is now being reported that he was actually banned from flying for Oman Air, despite being a citizen of that country. Why?

The flydubai co-pilot accused of stabbing the captain and trying to hijack an Israel-bound flight was identified as Hamam al-Hammami – who was previously banned from flying by Oman over fears he became radicalized, sources said.

The aviator, who was arrested after the frightening mid-air attack Wednesday, used to work for Oman Air, but was let go when radical ideology was found on his cell phone, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Somehow, al-Hammani got a new job with FlyDubai only 8 months ago, which is an affiliate airline of Emirates (it has been described as the “JetBlue” of Emirates), where his behavior raised concerns with his co-workers.

He was “someone characterized by very strange behavior, especially around religious observances that were out of step with his surroundings,” a fellow pilot told Israel’s Channel 16 journalist Yosef Yisrael.

“For instance, he used to pray a lot, and would not shake hands with women,” Yisrael said of what the pilot told him on the condition of anonymity.

The colleague claimed flydubai – a sister airline of Emirates – had “betrayed” the Jewish State by hiring the pilot who others have said seemed desperate to crash the plane in another 9/11.

“There is no other way to put it, we hired the services of a terrorist and nearly caused the deaths of 180 people,” the co-worker reportedly told the journalist.

And exactly what kind of radical content are we talking about?

“This was a person who was willing to commit suicide,” the official told the Times of Israel.

“His social media accounts [say] clearly that he has been radicalized into jihadist ideology.

“He talks about killing Jews.”

The Omani native also reportedly possessed anti-Israeli literature, heightening the suspicion he intended to kill Jews, according to Israeli outlet i24.

Hamam al-Hammani was considered too radical to fly for Oman, so how did he get hired on at FlyDubai? That is going to be the million-dollar question, and it raises a whole host of issues that need addressing. Was al-Hammani acting on his own, or was he planted at FlyDubai? Prime Minister Netanyahu is clearly leaning toward the latter explanation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
“As time passes, the picture is becoming clearer. Yaniv and his heroic companions prevented a disaster on the scale of 9/11.

The attacker underwent Islamist radicalization. He intended to crash the plane with all its passengers on board.

We… pic.twitter.com/GeWLLU2e6L

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 2, 2026

The full post reads:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
“As time passes, the picture is becoming clearer. Yaniv and his heroic companions prevented a disaster on the scale of 9/11.

The attacker underwent Islamist radicalization. He intended to crash the plane with all its passengers on board.

We are now investigating whether he was sent, and whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price.”

If al-Hammani acted alone, then how did he get assigned to be the co-pilot on a flight to Israel? As we know, only pilots holding citizenship in countries with diplomatic relations with Israel are allowed to fly into the country. Al-Hammani only had citizenship in Oman. Did his birth and residency in UAE create assumptions about his citizenship status, which he didn’t bother to correct? Or, did someone at FlyDubai hire him, knowing about his radicalization and anti-Semitism, and place him in the cockpit of that flight because they set him up as a suicide bomber? The idea that there might be a “mole” within FlyDubai, who hired a jihadist radical willing to take down a plane full of civilians, is definitely the more frightening option. And yet, it could be entirely plausible.

Despite al-Hammani’s actions, the attempt to crash the plane was foiled by the heroic actions of the captain and pilot, Smit Machchhar, who refused to give up and let his murderous co-pilot win. Machchhar talked with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who praised Machchhar for his bravery and posted a video of the call on his official YouTube channel.

Machchhar, who is an Indian national and spoke to Modi from his hospital bed in Abu Dhabi, said he had been flying for 17 years and a captain for 11 years. He said he can tell, even with his eyes closed, what is happening with a plane.

“When I was lying there on the floor, I could feel that the aircraft was plunging,” he said, speaking about the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, in which he was attacked by his co-pilot. “And I knew that it would be the last push.”

He willed himself to open the door to the cockpit, which allowed other passengers to rush in and apprehend the assailant, whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said was “suicidal” and underwent Islamist indoctrination.

“Everyone came in and played an equally important role in what happened,” Machchhar said.

“I knew that, apart from fighting for my own life, I could not let all those people die.”

That Machchhar is alive and able to talk to Modi is nothing short of miraculous, and we should all pray that he makes a complete recovery after such a harrowing attack. And it would help to figure out who put al-Hammani in the seat next to him, and allowed him to take that flight to Israel when it should have been prevented in the first place.

Featured image: FlyDubai Boeing Boeing 737-8 MAX via Anna Zvereva on Wikimedia Commons, cropped, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)