Flydubai co-pilot planned to crash plane into Israeli airport; Captain Smit's resistance foiled plot

RIYADH: The Omani co-pilot in the attack on a Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv has revealed the motive behind the incident. 29-year-old Hamam Al Hammami had planned to hijack the aircraft and crash it into Israel's Ben Gurion Airport, according to his statement during interrogation.

Hammami allegedly planned to attack and kill the flight's captain, Smit Machchhar, and then demand that the aircraft be allowed to land at Ben Gurion Airport without raising suspicion before carrying out the attack. He intended an attack similar to the one in which the World Trade Centre in the United States was destroyed.

Hammami believed that his plan would succeed as intended. He also thought that no one would intervene. If he could not crash the aircraft into the airport, he planned to fly it into a building in Tel Aviv or a US base in Jordan. However, Captain Smit's strong resistance despite being attacked and his decision to send a distress signal from the cockpit shattered Hammami's plans. The cabin crew and passengers then intervened and overpowered the co-pilot.

Meanwhile, the terrorist organisation Al Qaeda has praised the attack on the aircraft. It described the actions of Hammami as heroic and called on its followers to carry out similar attacks on aircraft targeting the US and Israel.

Al Qaeda compared the Flydubai incident with the World Trade Centre attack it carried out in the US in 2001. It claimed that commercial aircraft are not safe and said that if Hammami had succeeded in crashing the plane, the balance of power in the region could have changed. The organisation’s official response appeared in an editorial in the weekly Al-Bayan, published by its sympathisers.