Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says investigations suggest the man who stabbed his fellow pilot and tried to take over a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination”. The Flydubai plane plunged more than 17,000ft (5,200m) two hours into its journey on Wednesday, before passengers and crew overpowered the attacker and retook control to land safely. Netanyahu told Fox News that it was looking “very likely” that the attacker, who he said was an Omani national, “was going to down the plane”. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) state news agency reports investigations have begun there to determine “whether the incident was linked to any terrorist activity or purpose”.
The Interior Ministry of Saudi Arabia – where the plane made an emergency landing – said that both the pilot and co-pilot had been sent back to the UAE on Thursday morning after medical teams had cleared them. UAE officials earlier claimed jurisdiction over the incident because the aircraft on which the attack took place is registered there and flies under its flag. Netanyahu told Fox that once the attacker had been subdued and tied up by passengers and crew, he was “calling out to the aircrew ‘kill me, kill me’, so it’s clear he was suicidal – that’s not a question”. “And with all the passengers in there, and if you couple that with what I just told you about the Islamist tendencies, that radicalisation that were found in his background, I think… that’ll give us a pretty good clue.” However, he stressed that he did not want to draw any firm conclusions as to motive yet.
Both US President Donald Trump and UAE officials have indicated to the media that Iran may be responsible for the incident, without definitively blaming Tehran. Trump told reporters on Thursday that Iran would be “hit very hard” if it was deemed to have been involved in the attack. Pilots from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel were usually not allowed to fly there, Netanyahu said when asked about how the suspected Omani pilot came to be on the plane. He added: “Obviously there was a loophole here and we’re taking care of that among other things… with the full co-operation, I have to say, of the Emirati government, so we’re both interested in making sure this doesn’t happen again.” Oman has not formally established official ties with Israel, unlike the UAE.
The prime minister was also asked earlier on the same network whether there was an indication if Iran was involved, he replied: “It’s too early to say”. Flydubai passenger describes hugging his children as plane nosedived during attack Who is the ‘hero’ Indian pilot who was stabbed on Israel-bound flight? Both Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the stabbed pilot, Indian national Capt Smit Machchhar was a “hero”. India’s ambassador to the UAE Deepak Mittal visited Captain Machhar in hospital on Thursday, the Indian Mission confirmed on social media, stating he was “in good health and recovering well”.
Preliminary findings from a separate Israeli investigation into the incident, suggest that the alleged attacker intended to crash the plane, an Israeli security source told BBC Arabic. The source said the investigation – led by Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad – interviewed passengers after they arrived in Tel Aviv to establish what had happened on the plane. Flydubai’s flight FZ1073, with more than 170 people on board, took off from Dubai International Airport in the UAE at 03:05 GMT (07:05 local time), en route to Ben Gurion Airport. Two hours later, the 17,000ft drop in altitude was reported on the plane tracking website Flightradar24 and minutes later the plane signalled an emergency code.
At about 05:40, the plane – which had briefly entered Jordanian airspace – looped back into Saudi Arabia, where it later started its manual descent, landing safely at Tabuk Airport in the north west of Saudi. Flydubai has since suspended flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv as it carried out its own investigation into the incident. Israel’s Transportation Ministry said the suspension aligns with Netanyahu’s directive. Israeli airlines including El Al, Israir and Arkia said plans were in place to operate rescue flights from Dubai starting on Friday to bring back stranded passengers.
The Transportation Ministry also said it sent an urgent request to Etihad Airlines to increase the number of flights between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv.
