UAE To Seek Death Penalty For Flydubai Terrorist: REPORT

The terrorist co-pilot who tried to nose-dive a Dubai-to-Tel Aviv jetliner into the ground is now looking at the possibility of a date with the executioner, according to a report from the Israeli outlet Ynet that cites a top Emirati official.

Abu Dhabi authorities appear ready to throw the book at 29-year-old jihadi Hamam al-Hammami and demand the maximum sentence under the law after the mid-air nightmare aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073.

Mossad operatives and Israeli aviation experts have already shown up in Abu Dhabi to interrogate al-Hammami. They are joining intelligence agents from Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United States in a multi-nation probe, which is what you do when someone decides the cockpit is a good place to start a war.

Investigators suspect Hammami was not simply trying to dump the Boeing 737 MAX 8 into the sea. He was plotting a horrifying, 9/11-style kamikaze run aimed straight at Tel Aviv’s iconic Azrieli Towers in the style of 911.

The horror started when al-Hammami attacked Indian-born Captain Smit Machchhar with the cockpit’s own emergency crash axe. The scumcrumpet yanked the controls into a death spiral and dropped the jet 14,000 feet in thirty seconds. Bleeding and battered, Captain Machchhar fought back and got the reinforced cockpit door open just in time for Israeli passengers to storm in. 

An Israeli passenger, Yaniv Hion, grabbed the controls and pulled the plane out of its plunge before an off-duty pilot was rushed forward to guide it to a miraculous emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Not Yaniv Hion

“When I got inside, I saw the attacker on the controls, between the two seats,” Hion recalled. “There were no pilots in the seats. One was down, and the attacker was on the controls. Another person came in with me. I grabbed the attacker, put him in a chokehold, and first of all pulled him out. … He was trying to destroy the controls in order to disable the plane. That’s what I saw.”

New details about al-Hammami’s past are now spilling out like a garbage can from Wendy's.

According to regional sources, Oman Air barred him from flying over concerns that he had adopted extremist [aka Islamic terrorist] views; Fox News reported this was linked to visits to radical Islamic websites. He was reportedly moved to an administrative job at the airline where he couldn't plunge a commercial airline into the earth.. In 2025, he completed three months of pre-employment training with Royal Air Maroc but was not hired.

Hammami reportedly traveled to Syria. He later joined Flydubai, where he had worked for less than a year. His hiring checks reportedly focused on criminal records rather than signs of radicalization. Hopefully this will change and proper vetting will take place in the future.

According to an Israeli official, this was his first flight into Israel, which raises the obvious question of how an Omani pilot was assigned to the route at all, since Israel’s agreement with Flydubai bars pilots from countries without diplomatic ties.

Conspiracy? Oversight? Clusterfrack?

An Emirati source admitted the global pilot shortage left airlines rushing hiring checks and called the oversight a “very serious failure.” That is one way to put it--I'd go for the last choice above.

Israel is now tightening crew screenings on all incoming foreign flights. Better late than never, assuming “never” was not the original plan.

Now that's closing the barn door now that the horses have escaped.

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