The co-pilot of the FlyDubai plane who allegedly attacked its captain is an Omani national who was previously suspended by Oman Air as a security risk, sources say.
Page A4From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 3 October 2026
Oman flagged him a security risk in 2024; Examiner calls it a lesson on who belongs here.
As it ran on the front
Wednesday, September 30. A FlyDubai flight out of Dubai drops out of level flight near Israeli airspace. The Israeli prime minister tells reporters a co-pilot stabbed the other pilot and nearly crashed the aircraft; The Hill's headline that day calls it a "cockpit clash." By day's end, Indian media and then the Indian Embassy name the surviving pilot: Smit Machchhar, the man who gets stabbed and still manages to open the cockpit door so passengers can end it.
Saturday, October 3. Two filings land the same day and change what kind of story this is.…
…(cont) The first is personnel. ABC News and Fox News report that the co-pilot, now identified as 29-year-old Omani national Hamam al-Hammami, had already been grounded once — by Oman Air, in 2024, as a security risk. He did not clear that flag. He changed airlines.
The second is legal. NBC News and the New York Post report that a UAE official has told prosecutors this was an attempted terrorist attack: al-Hammami used the cockpit's crash axe on the pilot and tried to take the flight controls himself. "Hijacking" and "brawl" are words other people added, before and after the fact.
By Saturday afternoon, the op-eds arrive, built on the same five days of wire copy. One argues that a Hindu captain and Jewish passengers surviving together is America's real answer to a debate about who belongs here — a debate the flight never actually held.
What the timeline actually proves is smaller and uglier than either column. An airline grounded this man as a security risk. Another airline put him back in a cockpit, flying people to Israel, with an axe within arm's reach of the controls. The receipts don't say how many flags like his get read before the next hiring; they only say this one didn't. That isn't a debate about belonging. It's a staffing file that didn't get read twice.
“An airline flagged this guy as a security risk in 2024. Another airline put him in a cockpit with an axe within reach anyway, flying people to Israel — the hiring check and the security file never talked to each other. You only find out the two offices don't share a folder when somebody almost doesn't walk off the plane.”
“Look, the real story here is unity — a Hindu pilot, Jewish passengers, that's America working. The security flag thing, every airline's got paperwork that doesn't transfer between carriers, that's not a conspiracy, that's bureaucracy. Although — Oman Air grounded him specifically as a risk, so, did I say "doesn't transfer"? Strike that.”
Earlier in this story
- Co-pilot suspended by Oman as a security risk, hired by FlyDubai, then allegedly tries to kill his captain. By Sal · the milkman edition, 3 October 2026
The receipts
While Americans argue about which religious minorities belong in our national life, a Hindu of Indian origin captain and Jewish Israeli passengers offered a more consequential answer: They helped keep everyone on board Flydubai Flight FZ1073 alive. On Sept. 30, Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv became the scene of an apparent attempt…
UAE prosecutors say flydubai co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami used a crash axe to attack the pilot in an attempted hijack of an Israel-bound flight.
Hamam al-Hammami, the 29-year-old FlyDubai co-pilot accused of stabbing the captain on a Tel Aviv-bound flight, was previously grounded by Oman Air in 2024.
Imagine sitting on an airplane at 34,000 feet. Breakfast has been served. You are flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv with more than 170 other people, most of them Israelis.
TEL AVIV — A Flydubai pilot attacked his fellow pilot using a crash axe and tried to take control of the aircraft’s flight controls in an attempted terrorist attack, an official in the United Arab Emirates said Saturday.
· What to know about Flydubai cockpit clash as pilot is arrested from the morgue, 30 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.