{"id":790584,"date":"2026-10-03T10:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T10:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/790584\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T10:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T10:48:09","slug":"flydubai-co-pilot-attacked-captain-with-crash-axe-in-terrorist-act-uae-aviation-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/790584\/","title":{"rendered":"Flydubai co-pilot attacked captain with crash axe in \u2018terrorist act\u2019: UAE | Aviation News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Probe \u2060under way to \u200bdetermine \u2018all the \u2060circumstances\u2019, including motive, UAE\u2019s prosecutor general says.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Published On 3 Oct 20263 Oct 2026<\/p>\n

The prosecutor general of the United Arab Emirates has said a Flydubai co-pilot \u201cattempted to carry out a terrorist act\u201d during a flight earlier this week, using a crash axe against the pilot inside the cockpit.<\/p>\n

State news agency WAM quoted Hamad Saif al-Shamsi as saying on Saturday that the attacker of Wednesday\u2019s flight FZ1073 tried to take control of the aircraft\u2019s flight controls.<\/p>\n

He said the investigation is under way \u201cto uncover all the circumstances of the incident, its motives, and related connections, in addition to completing technical examinations and examining physical and digital evidence\u201d.<\/p>\n

The final results will be announced as soon as the necessary procedures are completed, al-Shamsi said.<\/p>\n

A crash axe is a tool kept in a cockpit to help pilots cut through the plane in emergencies.<\/p>\n

The plane carrying 174 passengers was on its way from the UAE\u2019s Dubai to Israel\u2019s Tel Aviv on Wednesday when a co-pilot wounded Indian pilot Smit Machchhar<\/a> who opened the cockpit to seek help.<\/p>\n

The attacker was not officially identified, but media reports quoting unnamed sources claimed he was\u00a0 Omani national Hamam al-Hammami<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The aircraft briefly plunged about 17,000 feet (5,180 metres) before it was brought back under control by a second paid of new pilots after passengers and crew subdued the attacker.<\/p>\n

The flight was diverted and forced to make an emergency landing at Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

The co-pilot was arrested by Saudi authorities and handed over to the UAE as it leads the probe.<\/p>\n

Machchhar was also returned to the UAE.<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that \u2060Israel was looking into whether the co-pilot had acted under anyone\u2019s direction, warning that anyone involved would pay a \u201cheavy price\u201d.<\/p>\n

Flydubai halted all flights its Israel route after the incident and Israel\u2019s El Al cancelled its scheduled flights, stranding some Israelis in the UAE.<\/p>\n

At 22:00 GMT on Friday, the first repatriation flight, operated by Israeli carrier Arkia, arrived at Tel Aviv\u2019s Ben Gurion Airport from Dubai.<\/p>\n

\"Interactive_FlyDubai_September30_2026-1790780093\"(Al Jazeera)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Probe \u2060under way to \u200bdetermine \u2018all the \u2060circumstances\u2019, including motive, UAE\u2019s prosecutor general says. Published On 3 Oct…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2410,49,9084,632,50,5386,51,47,52,48,5387],"class_list":["post-790584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-aviation","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-arab-emirates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}