Australia, New Zealand investigate Flydubai co-pilot's past after foiled hijacking

On a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, a co-pilot from Oman attacked the captain with an emergency ax in the cockpit, then attempted to send the aircraft into a near-vertical dive. The plane plummeted for roughly thirty seconds before the pilot and passengers managed to restrain him and regain control. An emergency landing followed in Saudi Arabia. Now, as the suspect sits in custody in the United Arab Emirates, authorities in Australia and New Zealand have begun examining his years in both countries, searching for clues about how a young man who once enrolled in engineering school became someone willing to commit an act of mass violence.

The co-pilot arrived in Australia on a student visa in 2014 and enrolled at RMIT University in Melbourne the following year, pursuing an engineering degree. He did not finish. By 2017, he had left the university. His visa was canceled in 2019. The university confirmed the enrollment and the incomplete qualification but offered no further detail about his time there or reasons for departure. Australian authorities moved quickly: the Victorian Counter Terrorism Team, a joint operation of federal police, state police, and the ASIO intelligence agency, announced on Monday that it was investigating his links to the country.

New Zealand police acknowledged that the suspect had also spent time there, though they declined to specify when or where. Assistant Commissioner Michael Johnson told the Radio New Zealand news outlet that authorities were examining his time in the country "alongside other agencies where appropriate," but he would not elaborate further. The reticence was notable—both countries seemed aware that the investigation was ongoing and that premature disclosure might compromise it.

The pilot he attacked, Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, had his own history in the region. He had completed his early flight training eighteen years earlier with Mainland Air, a New Zealand carrier. When the co-pilot made his move in the cockpit, Machchhar fought back. He managed to open the cockpit door, allowing crew and passengers to enter and help subdue the attacker. Philip Kean, the chief executive of Mainland Air, spoke to the significance of that moment: had Machchhar not opened the door, he said, the outcome would have been catastrophic. The plane would have crashed.

What emerges from the available facts is a portrait of a young man who moved between countries, enrolled in formal education, and then, at some point, became radicalized or committed to an act of violence. The timeline is clear enough—visa in 2014, enrollment in 2015, departure in 2017, visa cancellation in 2019, and then, years later, an attempt to murder a planeload of people. But the mechanism of that transformation remains opaque. Australian and New Zealand authorities are now trying to fill that gap, to understand what happened during those years abroad, whether there were warning signs, whether there were connections to extremist networks or ideologies. The investigation is just beginning, and both countries are being careful not to say more than they know.