New Delhi: Australian counterterrorism investigators are examining the flydubai co-pilot’s links to the country after the cockpit attack that injured Indian Captain Smit Machchhar. The inquiry, confirmed on Sunday comes alongside fresh questions about how the suspect was cleared to operate the Dubai–Tel Aviv flight.
The Australian Federal Police said the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team was investigating his Australian connections, Reuters reported. Separately, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered a review of security arrangements for foreign civil aviation serving Israel.
Regional officials told the Associated Press that the UAE had supplied Israel with passenger and crew information, including nationalities, before departure. They said Israel had raised no concerns about anyone aboard, although it remains unclear what checks were conducted.
Responsibility for screening has become disputed: the Shin Bet pointed to the transport ministry, while the transport minister, Miri Regev, said security agencies were responsible. The ministry’s aviation security chief said it relied on checks undertaken locally and lacked the capacity to investigate every passenger on foreign flights.
Senior intelligence officials, identified the suspect as 29-year-old Omani national Hamam Al Hammami. Its sources said Oman Air had suspended him from flying after extremist material was found in his possession while he was a co-pilot trainee in 2024 but retained him in an administrative role.
Those allegations have intensified scrutiny of his subsequent employment and assignment to the Israel-bound service. Oman Air and the Omani embassy did not immediately respond to ABC’s requests for comment, and the account of his earlier suspension remains attributed to unnamed officials.
Flydubai told ABC that it could not provide further details while the circumstances remained under investigation and said it was assisting the relevant authorities. The airline had announced a temporary suspension of Tel Aviv operations at the authorities’ request.
The UAE’s attorney general, Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, said investigators had established an attempted terrorist act involving an assault on the captain with the cockpit’s crash axe and an attempt to seize the controls. Investigators were continuing to examine motives, possible connections, and physical and digital evidence.
The widening inquiry follows the September 30 attack aboard flight FZ1073, during which Machchhar managed to open the flight-deck door despite his injuries. Passengers and crew intervened, and reserve pilots helped bring the aircraft safely to Tabuk in Saudi Arabia before the captain was transferred to Abu Dhabi for treatment.
Haaretz reported that Israel’s Tax Authority confirmed receiving the flight list, while the transport ministry declined to say whether it had checked the names. Questions remain about which agency examined the information and whether any earlier concerns about the co-pilot were available to those responsible for screening him.
The UAE president’s diplomatic adviser, Anwar Gargash, has warned that the episode demonstrates the continuing threat from extremism and the need to confront rhetoric that encourages it. He also praised Machchhar’s conduct and cautioned against promoting conspiracy theories about the attack.
The investigation now extends beyond reconstructing the struggle inside the cockpit to examining the safeguards that preceded it. Authorities still need to establish how the co-pilot was vetted, whether he acted alone and whether information held in one country should have triggered action elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke to Machchhar on Saturday, has invited the pilot and the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to Israel’s Independence Day, as reported by RNA Media.