LONDON: An Omani FlyDubai co-pilot attempted to hijack a flight from Dubai to Israel and ‌crash it ‌into a passenger ‌terminal at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, UAE prosecutors said on Friday.Hamam Al-Hammami, 29, attacked his ‌fellow pilot in the cockpit with an emergency axe during the attempted hijack on Sept. 30, sending the jet into a terrifying plunge.The plot was only foiled when the flight’s Capt. Smit Machchhar fought back, allowing FlyDubai staff and passengers to enter the cockpit and tackle the attacker.  An off-duty crew on board managed to bring the Boeing 737 MAX, with more than 180 passengers onboard, under control and made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al-Shamsi said the investigation had revealed that Al-Hammami had begun carrying out “a premeditated terrorist plot to seize control of the aircraft and use it to launch a suicide attack targeting the passenger terminal at Ben Gurion Airport.”The aim was to cause “the greatest possible loss of life” in an act inspired by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Al-Shamsi said in a report on the UAE state news agency. While he did not name the Omani pilot, Al-Hammami’s identity emerged in multiple reports last week. The attacker confessed he had become a pilot in the hope of carrying out a terrorist attack using an aircraft, the attorney general said.He started to drift toward extremism in 2017 while studying in Melbourne, Australia. “He was influenced by takfiri ideology through reading extremist literature and following online content glorifying terrorist organizations and suicide attacks,” the investigators found.Al-Hammami told prosecutors he regularly attended a mosque affiliated with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), where he met individuals associated with an Islamic center known as “My Centre.” The facility was run by a Lebanese man known as “Abu Hamza” and was allegedly supported by a Muslim Brotherhood-linked association. Despite his radicalization, he had met the “professional and security requirements for employment” at FlyDubai. “None of the procedures revealed any indications of his extremist views or his intention to carry out a terrorist plot,” Al-Shamsi said. Al-Hammami was employed by Oman Air from 2020 to 2024 and joined Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc in early 2025 before moving to FlyDubai in January this year. In preparing for the attack, he used two previous flights to Tel Aviv to familiarize himself with the route and the airport, the investigation found. Al-Shamsi revealed new details of the critical moments that led to the plot being foiled. A pilot who was assigned to the return flight and traveling onboard flight FZ1073 with his co-pilot happened to be near the cockpit when he noticed the door “opening and closing repeatedly in an unusual manner.”He entered the cockpit using the access code and saw the attack underway. “He immediately intervened with the assistance of a cabin crew member and several passengers, and together they rescued the injured captain and restrained the suspect,” Al-Shamsi said.The return-flight pilots regained control of the aircraft after it had plunged nearly 5,000 meters in 30 seconds. Al-Shamsi said the attacker had provided a “detailed confession outlining his motives and the stages of planning and execution.” While he claimed to be acting alone, investigators are still looking into whether others were involved.The attack has led to several countries launching investigations into Al-Hammami’s background.Australian police said on Sunday they were investigating his links to the country, while RMIT said he had left the university before completing his engineering qualification.