UAE prosecutor says Flydubai co-pilot used a crash axe in an attempted attack

The United Arab Emirates attorney general said on Saturday that the co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073 attacked the captain with a crash axe and tried to take the controls, and that investigators treat the episode as an attempted terrorist act.

Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, quoted by the state news agency WAM, said the inquiry is still open. It is looking at motive, any wider links, and the physical and digital evidence. He said the final account would be released when the technical work is finished.

The flight left Dubai for Tel Aviv on Wednesday with about 182 people on board, a figure used by The Guardian. Other reports put the load above 170 passengers and crew. About two and a half hours after departure the aircraft began a steep descent. The Guardian reported a drop of 16,625 feet in just over 30 seconds, severe enough that part of the rudder was torn off. The BBC put the plunge at about 17,000 feet, or 5,200 metres. Transponder codes changed during the emergency: the crew first signalled a general emergency, squawk 7700, then switched to 7500, the code for unlawful interference.

The weapon was not smuggled through the cabin. A crash axe is a standard cockpit tool, kept there so a crew can cut through structure after a crash or a fire. Al Shamsi said the co-pilot used that axe against the captain and tried to seize the flight controls. That finding answers one question investigators had been asking in public: how a blade got onto a secured flight deck.

Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, was stabbed and ended up on the cockpit floor. In a video call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi he said he told himself to make one last push and open the door from inside. Passengers and a reserve crew then entered. Machchhar told Modi he was fighting for his own life and that he was not going to let the others die. He was taken first to a hospital in Saudi Arabia and later airlifted to Abu Dhabi. The Indian embassy in the UAE said he was in stable condition and recovering.

Passengers named in early accounts include Tali Manes, who raised the alarm, her husband Zvika Manes, Yaniv Hayun, Dr Shota Musayev and Asaf Rajuan. Hayun described the attacker trying to damage instruments, then said he put the man in a chokehold until others pinned him down. Passenger Almog Itali compared the drop to a rollercoaster, with high G-forces lasting 20 to 30 seconds and repeating. Two reserve pilots took the aircraft and landed it at Tabuk, in north-western Saudi Arabia, at 06:58 local time.

Media outlets including Reuters, CNN and The New York Times have named the co-pilot as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani national. Al Shamsi has not confirmed the name in the statements carried by WAM. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the attacker was Omani and that he had undergone Islamist radicalisation. Netanyahu told Fox News and CNN that after the man was subdued he shouted to be killed, which Netanyahu read as a sign the aim was to bring the aircraft down. He later called Machchhar, on a video call, a hero of India, Israel and the world. Those claims about motive sit ahead of the UAE inquiry. Al Shamsi has not published a finding on ideology or on outside direction.

The Guardian reported that Oman had barred the same man from flying at Oman Air over extremist views and moved him to an administrative job before flydubai hired him. Buckinghamshire New University confirmed that a student named Hamam al-Hammami completed a distance-learning course in aviation management there in the recent past, and that the course involved no pilot training. His Instagram account, the paper said, was active until the day of the flight and was then deleted. Israel and Oman have no formal diplomatic relations. Carriers flying to Israel already operate under agreements that restrict pilots from some states. The hiring of an Omani first officer on a Dubai-Tel Aviv service is one of the points security services from the UAE, Israel, the United States and four regional countries are now checking.

Flydubai has suspended Dubai-Tel Aviv flights until further notice. The captain and the co-pilot were both moved to the UAE. All flydubai pilots are screened before flights and face an annual medical check. Neither step stopped this attack, because the tool was already in the cockpit and the attacker was a rated crew member.

The practical consequence is narrower than a hijacking with a smuggled weapon and wider than a fight between two pilots. A cockpit emergency axe is now a demonstrated means of attack from inside the flight deck. Reserve crew and passengers stopped the descent only after the rudder was damaged and the captain had opened the door while wounded. Airlines that keep a second crew on Israel routes will treat that staffing choice as a security control, not only a duty-time rule. The UAE has not said whether al-Hammami, if that is the man in custody, acted alone. Until Al Shamsi closes the file, the open question is whether the vetting failure was a single hire or a gap that other Gulf carriers share.