A co-pilot attempting to seize control of a Flydubai flight en route to Israel attacked the captain with an onboard crash axe, judicial authorities in the United Arab Emirates confirmed. The passenger aircraft carrying more than 170 people descended sharply by 17,000 feet two and a half hours after departing Dubai. Passengers and crew members managed to breach the flight deck and overpower the attacker before disaster struck.
The aircraft was safely guided to an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
Captain Smit Machchhar recounted that he was injured on the cockpit floor when he realised the airliner was plunging rapidly. Pushing himself forward, he managed to unlatch the flight deck door from within, enabling passengers to intervene. Two off-duty reserve pilots traveling on the aircraft subsequently assumed control and completed the diversion without further structural mishap.
The flight transponder had broadcast emergency squawk codes signaling unlawful interference.
Investigators had focused on how a weapon could enter the flight deck given intense screening procedures on international routes. The UAE attorney general clarified to state media that the implement used was the emergency crash axe routinely stored inside cockpits for crisis situations. Israeli officials stated the co-pilot was an Omani citizen, identified across international reports as Hamam al-Hammami, though official confirmation of the name remains pending. He had previously completed an aviation management degree in Britain and had earlier been removed from operational flight training by another regional carrier.
Machchhar was initially stabilised at a regional facility before being airlifted to Abu Dhabi, where diplomats confirmed his condition is steady and improving. State prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates stated that comprehensive inquiries remain underway to identify the full scope, motive, and background behind the cockpit confrontation.
