Flydubai cockpit attack probe reaches Australia and New Zealand
Police in New Zealand and Australia are now digging into the past of the flydubai co-pilot accused of attacking his captain with a crash axe on a Tel Aviv flight. New Zealand says he spent 175 days there on a student visa in 2018 and 2019. More than 170 people were aboard the plane.
The investigation into last week's attack on flydubai Flight FZ1073 has spread to two more countries. Police in New Zealand and a counterterrorism team in Australia are both looking into the co-pilot's time there.
New Zealand Assistant Police Commissioner Michael Johnson said Monday that the co-pilot arrived on Nov. 30, 2018, and left on May 23, 2019. He spent 175 days in the country on a six-month student visa, doing part of his flight training with a British company that no longer operates there, the Otago Daily Times reported.
In Australia, a joint team of federal police, Victoria state police and the ASIO spy agency is probing his links to the country. RMIT University in Melbourne confirmed he enrolled but did not finish an engineering degree. A source told The Guardian he arrived in 2015, left in 2017 and had his visa canceled in 2019.
The attack happened Sept. 30 on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv. The United Arab Emirates, which leads the probe, says the co-pilot struck the captain with a crash axe and tried to take the controls. UAE officials call it an attempted terrorist attack.
The captain, Smit Machchhar of India, was badly hurt but managed to open the cockpit door. Passengers and crew then subdued the attacker. A reserve flydubai pilot on board landed the plane in northwestern Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported.
Media outlets have named the suspect as Omani national Hamam al-Hammami. UAE officials and flydubai have not named him. He is in UAE custody, and no formal charges have been announced, according to Reuters.
Two Israeli officials told Reuters he planned the attack before flydubai hired him, and that he picked the airline after searching for carriers that fly to Tel Aviv. Royal Air Maroc says he did three months of classroom training with it in 2025 before it rejected his job application.
The motive is still unclear. U.S. officials told NBC News that early signs suggest he acted alone. But they said links to a group or a government have not been ruled out.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered a security review of foreign airlines that fly to Israel. Flydubai suspended its Dubai-Tel Aviv flights after the attack.
What we know: Probes now span the UAE, Israel, Australia and New Zealand.
What we don't: Why he was assigned to a Tel Aviv flight, and whether anyone helped him.
Where outlets agree Reuters and NBC News both report that UAE officials call the cockpit assault an attempted terrorist attack in which the co-pilot struck the captain with a crash axe.
Where they differ President Trump raised the possibility of Iranian involvement, but a senior U.S. official told NBC News there was no sign Iran directed the attack.