JERUSALEM
\nThe FlyDubai \u200cco-pilot who stabbed his captain in an alleged attempt to crash the plane last week told UAE interrogators he planned the attack before being hired by the airline, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the probe.
\nA third source briefed on the UAE probe said the co-pilot, an Omani national, had planned to crash Wednesday\u2019s flight into Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. He had also operated a flight to Tel Aviv earlier this year and intended to hijack and crash the plane then, but opted not to, the source added.
\nIt was not immediately clear why the co-pilot changed his mind on that previous flight, although the co-pilot is thought to have known someone onboard, the source said. All of the sources \u200cspoke on condition \u200cof anonymity to discuss the investigation. UAE and Israeli authorities \u200cdid not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did flydubai.
\nThe co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073, which was bound for Israel from Dubai last Wednesday, attacked the pilot with an emergency crash axe, the United Arab Emirates prosecutor general has said, calling the incident a \u201cterrorist attack\u201d.
\nTwo sources have said the co-pilot is an Omani national named Hamam al-Hammami. Israeli officials have not named the co-pilot but have said he is from Oman. UAE authorities and flydubai have not publicly disclosed the co-pilot\u2019s identity.
\nReuters has not been able to independently reach al-Hammami, who \u200cis in UAE custody, for comment. The \u200cUAE has not announced any formal charges against him and it is not known if he \u200chas appointed legal counsel. Oman has not commented on the incident.
\nThe two Israeli officials \u200csaid the co-pilot told interrogators that he had applied for a job at Dubai state-owned flydubai after searching for airlines that fly to Tel Aviv. The third source said that Israel was being continuously updated about the investigation from the UAE.
\nDisaster on board flight FZ1073 was averted after passengers and crew \u200csubdued the co-pilot. The pilot, Indian national Smit Machchhar, survived the attack and has been hailed as a hero for managing to open the cockpit door. The plane was carrying more than 170 passengers and crew, most of them Israeli.
\nA reserve flydubai pilot travelling on the flight took control of the aircraft and landed it at a regional airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia, where the co-pilot was detained by Saudi authorities and later transferred to the UAE on Thursday.
\nuthorities in the United Arab Emirates shared with Israel a list of passengers and crew ahead of the FlyDubai flight on which a pilot attempted to seize control of the Israel-bound aircraft and crash it, regional officials said Sunday, raising new questions over how the attacker evaded detection.
\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later told the head of the National Security Council to appoint an examiner to review \u201call security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JERUSALEM The FlyDubai \u200cco-pilot who stabbed his captain in an alleged attempt to crash the plane last week told UAE interrogators he planned the attack before being hired by the airline, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the probe. A third source briefed on the UAE probe said the co-pilot, an Omani national, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103976,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103941\/revisions\/103976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}