The captain of the flydubai plane that was targeted in an attempted hijacking has revealed his attacker asked him to pray before hitting him over the head with an axe.
Co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami, 29, severely wounded captain Smit Machchhar using the onboard crash axe as he frantically tried to take control of flydubai flight FZ1073 on its way to Israel last Wednesday.
Heroic passengers and crew grappled with al-Hammami to regain control of the aircraft, which plummeted 14,000ft in just 29 seconds during the terrifying incident.
Al-Hammami was arrested and is being questioned by Saudi officials, while Mr Machchhar was hospitalised following the attack.
On Saturday the pilot spoke to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, giving his most detailed account of the terrifying incident to date.
He revealed that Al-Hammami asked him to pray midway through the flight, a request that did not seem unusual.
‘Suddenly, after four or five minutes, there was a big blow to the back of my head’, he said, adding: ‘My first thought was that there was catastrophic damage to the aircraft.
‘But after that, the blows kept coming, one after the other. That’s when I realized it’s not the aircraft, it’s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me.’
Al-Hammami is said to have revealed during interrogation that he planned to kill Captain Smit Machchhar (pictured) before flying on to Tel Aviv undetected and crashing the aircraft
Hamam al-Hammami, the suspected hijacker of the Flydubai aircraft, ‘dreamed’ of crashing it into Tel Aviv’s main airport and causing mass casualties, sources claim
He said he was badly injured and was losing his vision as he felt the plane ‘sharply going down’.
As he tried to open the cockpit door, al-Hammami stopped him. He was lying on the cockpit floor as he heard screams coming from the cabin.
He said he had to summon his strength to try and get to the door: ‘I had one last fight left in me. If I don’t do it, I’m going to die.’
Lunging for the door, he managed to get it open where a flock of passengers and cabin crew were waiting.
‘People were waiting to pounce back, and take control, and the rest is what you know, sir,’ he told the Israeli leader.
The passengers eventually managed to restrain him and miraculously regain control of the plane, before it was landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
Israeli sources now claim al-Hammami revealed during interrogation that he had plotted the hijack before he was even accepted as a pilot with Flydubai – and had ‘tried to get hired’ at several other airlines.
‘The dream was to crash into Ben-Gurion Airport,’ he added, according to a source speaking to The Jerusalem Post.
On Saturday the pilot spoke to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured) over the phone, giving his most detailed account of the terrifying incident to date
The co-pilot (pictured) used the cockpit’s crash axe in his attempt to take control of the Flydubai plane
Captain Smit Machchhar was visited by Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai, as he recovered from his injuries in hospital, on Friday
Al-Hammami – who authorities believe could have acted as a ‘lone wolf’ – is said to have travelled to Ben-Gurion Airport on a number of occasions before he unleashed the attack, most recently in July to gather intelligence.
During that month he intended to carry out his plot, but aborted his actions when he realised a crew member he was friendly with was on board.
Al-Hammami had also considered crashing the plane into a tower block close to the country’s military headquarters.
According to Italian outlet Corriere Della Sera, Israeli intelligence revealed al-Hammami planned to kill Mr Machchhar from behind the locked cockpit door before flying on as planned to Tel Aviv without suspicion.
As he neared the destination, he would fly into one of the Azrieli Towers close to Israel’s military headquarters, the Kirya, in central Tel Aviv.
The style of the attack would have mimicked the Al Qaeda terrorist attack on New York’s Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
Al-Hammami is said to have begun his attack over Jordan, around ten minutes away from the border with Israel – which would have left virtually no time for IDF fighter jets to intervene.
The latest revelations come as it was revealed al-Hammami held extremist views and said women should be ‘stomped on’ during religious rants posted on his social media.
While enrolled at Buckinghamshire New University (BNU) – where he studied for a three-year, distance-learning degree in aviation before graduating in 2023 – al-Hammami seemingly encouraged violence towards women in a series of posts, praising giving them a ‘pre-emptive slap’.
Al-Hammami is said to have ‘dreamed’ of crashing the plane into Ben-Gurion airport
Al-Hammami worked with Oman’s national airline as a trainee in 2024, but was removed from flying because of concerns that he may have been influenced by radical groups from time spent in Syria, according to officials. He was then moved to an administrative job at Oman Air.
It was not immediately clear to what extent the co-pilot was vetted when he was hired by the UAE-based airline.
However, it was confirmed by a Gulf diplomat that he had undergone standard security checks before being hired – but it appears these checks focused on whether he had been convicted on criminal charges and didn’t go deeper into examining his background for signs of radicalisation.
Royal Air Maroc confirmed that Al-Hammami had completed three months of training with the airline in 2025, but his application to work there afterwards was rejected.
The UAE, which is leading the investigation, is now working to establish whether he acted as a ‘lone wolf or has any connection with any extremist groups’.
Al-Hammami was born in the UAE and his mother is Syrian. He obtained Omani nationality from his father.
Video footage taken on board the flight captured the terrifying screams and cries of passengers onboard Flight FZ1073 that plunged into an erratic descent.
The flight, carrying 182 people from Dubai to Tel Aviv, was diverted to Tabuk in north-western Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing.
It transmitted a general emergency signal using a squawk code – four-digit numbers used for in-flight communication – of 7700 while making a U-turn over the border between the two countries.
While flying over Saudi Arabia, it briefly issued a code of 7500, signalling unlawful interference or a hijacking.
Officials feared the incident could have become another ‘September 11’ attack, adding that passengers had prevented an ‘Israeli 9/11’ by tying up the assailant.
Passengers and crew, including the captain Mr Machchhar, have been hailed for their bravery and helped save the lives of the 174 passengers on board.
Al-Hammami, who was transferred on Thursday from Saudi Arabia to the UAE, is understood to be ‘co-operating’.
