Flydubai co-pilot attacked captain with crash axe in foiled hijacking attempt

Two and a half hours after a Flydubai jet lifted off from Dubai bound for Tel Aviv, carrying more than 170 passengers, the aircraft began to fall. The descent was sudden and violent—a plunge of 17,000 feet that sent people lurching in their seats, the kind of drop that makes the body weightless and afraid. One passenger, Almog Itali, described it as a rollercoaster effect, the plane dropping hard for twenty or thirty seconds, then leveling briefly, then dropping again. The cockpit had transmitted a general emergency signal, then switched to a code indicating unlawful interference—a hijacking in progress.

What was happening behind the locked cockpit door was an attack. The co-pilot, identified by multiple news outlets as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani national, had turned on the captain with a crash axe—the emergency tool kept in the cockpit for situations exactly like this, though not this kind of situation. Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian pilot, was struck and fell to the floor injured. But even wounded, he understood the stakes. The plane was descending uncontrollably. He had to act. With what strength remained, he managed to open the cockpit door from the inside, creating an opening for the passengers who had begun rushing toward the front of the cabin.

An Israeli woman named Tali Manes had heard the commotion from the cockpit and raised the alarm. Her husband, Zvika, along with three other men—Yaniv Hayun, Dr. Shota Musayev, and Asaf Rajuan—pushed through to the cockpit. Hayun found the attacker trying to destroy the instruments, attempting to disable the plane entirely. Hayun put him in a chokehold, pulled him out of the cockpit, and other passengers helped pin him down. Then Hayun did something that may have saved everyone on board: he pulled the controls. The plane began to level out. When a reserve pilot arrived and took over, the immediate crisis was contained. The aircraft was guided safely to Saudi Arabia and landed without further incident.

Captain Machchhar was stabbed during the struggle but survived. He was taken to a hospital and later airlifted to Abu Dhabi, where he is reported to be in stable condition and recovering well. In a statement, he expressed confidence in his full recovery. The attacker was subdued and taken into custody.

What remains under investigation is why this happened and what radicalized the man who attempted it. The UAE's attorney general, Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, has characterized the incident as a terrorist act and said investigations are ongoing to establish the full circumstances and motives. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that after being subdued, the attacker called out to be killed, suggesting suicidal intent. Netanyahu also stated that the man had undergone what he described as Islamist radical indoctrination.

Background details have emerged from multiple sources. While working at Oman Air, al-Hammami was removed from flight training due to concerns about radical views and reassigned to another role. Australian authorities confirmed they are investigating his links to the country; according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he was issued a student visa in 2014 and studied there between 2015 and 2017 before his visa was cancelled in 2019 when he was no longer enrolled in a course. Counter-terrorism officials are examining whether radicalization occurred during his time in Australia. He later completed a distance-learning degree in aviation management from Buckinghamshire New University in the UK, graduating in 2023, though he received no pilot training there.

The crash axe itself became a point of investigation—how a weapon reached the cockpit on a flight to Israel, a route with stringent security protocols, remains a question authorities are working to answer. Early reports from passengers had suggested the weapon might have been a knife, but the prosecutor's office confirmed it was an axe. Netanyahu characterized what nearly happened as a potential "9/11 disaster" prevented by the quick thinking of a wounded pilot and ordinary passengers who acted without hesitation. The investigation into the attacker's background, his connections, and the full scope of his intentions continues.