Potential Australian link to alleged flydubai attacker as new footage from flight emerges
Australian authorities are investigating a potential link between the 29-year-old pilot accused of attacking his colleague with an axe and sending the plane into a nosedive on a flydubai flight to Israel this week.
It comes as new footage from the plane emerged, showing Hamam al-Hammami restrained after passengers stormed the cockpit, with blood all over his clothing.
Omani pilot Hamam al-Hammami is accused of attacking his colleage on a flydubai flight to Israel. 9News
Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar, 38, was at the helm of the passenger plane carrying 182 people from Dubai to Tel Aviv.
In a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Machchhar said his co-pilot al-Hammami asked if he could get up and pray.
Four to five minutes later, Machchhar said, he felt a sharp blow to the back of the head, and initially thought something had gone wrong with the plane.
“But then after that, the blows kept coming, one after the other, and that’s when I realised that it’s not the aircraft, it’s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me,” he told Netanyahu.
Al-Hammami, who is accused of attacking the captain and trying to seize the controls, was barred from flying on his country’s national airline because of concerns about extremist views, officials said on Saturday.
Captain Machchhar said his co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami (pictured) asked if he could get up and pray before the attack. 9News
He was born in the United Arab Emirates to an Omani father and Syrian mother and has spent several years of his life in the UAE, they added.
The United Arab Emirates, which is leading the investigation, said the co-pilot attacked the captain using the cockpit’s crash axe and tried to take control of the sharply plummeting plane in a “terrorist attack” on Wednesday.
Al-Hammami was restrained by passengers who stormed the cockpit. 9News
His actions nearly crashed the flight with 182 people on board before passengers and others rushed in and subdued him.
It also remains unclear how a citizen of Oman, an Arab country that has no diplomatic relations with Israel, was allowed to fly a planeload of Israelis to Tel Aviv.
While investigations remains ongoing, regional officials said Emirati authorities had shared information about the passengers and crew, including their nationalities.
Israel hadn’t raised red flags on any passenger or member of the crew, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to reporters about the probe.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, said the Transportation Ministry is responsible for vetting passenger lists from foreign flights.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan that the security agencies are responsible for flight security and that her ministry wasn’t given a list of passengers or any warnings.
Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel has long-standing agreements with foreign carriers to keep pilots from flying into the country if they are citizens of nations that don’t maintain diplomatic relations with Israel.
Australian connection probed
Australian authorities including ASIO, the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police are probing al-Hammami’s time in Australia.
The AFP confirmed the investigation to Nine newspapers, and said if relevant information was found, an update would be provided in due course.
Al-Hammami had been granted a visa to study in Australia in 2014, and had been in Melbourne from 2015 to 2017.
His visa expired in 2019.
CNN posted a since-deleted LinkedIn profile connected to al-Hammami which said he had studied engineering in Australia.
Other new details have raised questions about how thoroughly flydubai vets potential employees, and how the co-pilot’s presence on a flight filled with Israeli passengers got past Israel’s strict security protocols.
Israel’s government has said it has agreements with foreign carriers to keep pilots of nations without diplomatic ties from flying there. Israel and Oman don’t have formal diplomatic relations.
The UAE government has earned a reputation for effective measures against extremist activities but has bristled in the past over criticism of security lapses.
Flydubai hired co-pilot after Oman Air barred him
Separately, a regional official and a person familiar with the matter said the co-pilot had been barred from flying by Oman over concerns he had adopted extremist views.
The official said he was moved to an administrative job at Oman Air.
Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. They gave no details about the alleged extremist views.
Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, left, visits injured Indian Flydubai Capt. Smit Machchhar at a hospital in Abu Dhabi Government of Dubai Media Office via AP
The co-pilot was later hired by UAE-based airline flydubai, the person said. It was not immediately clear to what extent the co-pilot was vetted.
The Gulf diplomat said he had undergone standard security checks before being hired, but it appears that the checks focused on whether he had been convicted on criminal charges and didn’t go deeper into examining his background for potential signs of radicalisation.
The regional official also said security agencies from four regional countries were working to establish the co-pilot’s motives, aided by the United States and other Western governments.
The Gulf diplomat said investigations were trying to establish whether the co-pilot acted alone or "has any connection with any extremist groups.”
The regional official also said the co-pilot had travelled to Syria, with no details.
LinkedIn profile removed, social media deleted
A LinkedIn profile bearing the name Hamam al-Hammami said he worked at Oman Air for seven years, leaving in February 2025, before joining Royal Air Maroc in June 2025 and departing in January 2026.
The page made no mention of flydubai.
One of the sources confirmed that the profile belongs to the flydubai pilot in Wednesday’s incident.
The profile has since been deleted and CNN said it contacted LinkedIn for comment.
Smit Machchhar, the flydubai captain who fought off an attack by his co-pilot. Modhi
Meanwhile, a regional diplomatic source familiar with the matter told CNN the suspect was removed from flight training because of the concerns over his radical views and was given another role at Oman’s national airline.
On Thursday, Netanyahu said the suspect was believed to have undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination.”
The Israeli official told CNN that al-Hammami had worked for flydubai for only eight months.
A fourth source said the alleged assailant had worked for Royal Air Maroc.
Israeli passengers who had been aboard a FlyDubai aircraft that made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia are welcomed at the arrivals gate at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. AP
The revelations will raise concerns about the importance of background checks in aviation hiring.
A flydubai spokesperson said in an email that the airline could not comment beyond its official statements and acknowledged “there are many questions at this stage.”
There was no immediate comment from Oman Air, and Oman’s government has said nothing publicly in response to repeated questions since the incident.
In a statement to the AP, Royal Air Maroc, Morocco’s national carrier, said the co-pilot “completed a three-month theoretical training period with the airline in 2025, as part of the pre-employment process. At the end of this training period, his application was not selected for employment”.
There were no details.
Keith Coles, a spokesperson for Buckinghamshire New University in England, told the AP that al-Hammami previously completed a distance-learning course in aviation management there but “did not undertake any pilot training.” There were no details on the timing.
Little else was immediately known about the co-pilot’s background. His Instagram account was active until the day of the flight and then deleted.
Threatening mutilation and death
Only two posts were made to the LinkedIn profile, and both were published in quick succession on Wednesday, about nine hours after the incident, CNN said.
It is unclear who published the posts or whether they were scheduled in advance.
The first post featured a series of clips filmed in the cockpits of a Boeing 737 Max aircraft.
The aircraft that diverted to Saudi Arabia in Wednesday’s incident was a flydubai 737 Max 8.
Flydubai flight hero passenger Yaniv Hayoun, greeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. X
In one clip, which CNN geolocated to Dubai International Airport, the person filming zooms in on a plane that belongs to the Israeli airline El Al.
In the video, the cockpit screen showed the flight number – OMA624 – and date, October 11, 2023.
The flight number corresponds to a flight that typically travels from Dubai to Muscat. The date matches the period of time he worked at Oman Air.
In other clips in the video, more planes from El Al, as well as one from Arkia, another Israeli airline, are shown.
The video ends with a photo of Ayman al-Zawahiri, who led al Qaeda after the death of Osama Bin Laden, and a photo of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who killed nine people, including seven American CIA officers and contractors, in a 2009 suicide bombing, and was loyal to al Qaeda.
The second post features an AI-generated image depicting Islam’s three holiest sites – in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem – linked by a continuous glowing trail.
A defiant poem recited in the background speaks of rejecting humiliation, not fearing death and defending one’s dignity.
A photo of Ayman al-Zawahiri, who led al Qaeda after the death of Osama Bin Laden Ayman al-Zawahiri was in the post. AP
Al-Hammami’s LinkedIn page said he studied at Buckinghamshire New University in England.
A source at the university confirmed to CNN that a man by that name had completed a three-year distance learning course, graduating with a degree in aviation management in 2023.
The same two videos were posted around the same time on an Instagram account bearing the same name and pictures, before that account was also deleted.
CNN reached out to Meta for comment.
An investigation is now under way into the mid-air stabbing. Getty
‘Ruined women’
A CNN analysis of al-Hammami’s deleted Twitter account shows him as deeply religious and misogynistic.
In deleted posts, al-Hammami discussed the difficulties his mother faced in finding him a prospective wife who would accept his conditions that she wear a niqab, a face covering, and stop working after marriage.
“They all refused. Then my mother told them, ‘My son is a pilot,’ and they all suddenly agreed,” the post from February 2022 said.
The posts also railed against mixed-gender workplaces, saying they had a corrupting effect on women.
“How many respectable, religious girls have been ruined in mixed-gender work environments and manipulated?” a post from January 2022 said.
The nearly 3000 deleted tweets, published between 2021 and 2022, were analysed and sorted using an AI-powered semantic search model.
- Reported with CNN and Associated Press.
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