# Netanyahu Orders a Review of Every Foreign Flight Into Israel After an Omani Co-Pilot Tried to Crash One

> Hamam al-Hammami attacked the captain of flydubai flight 1073 with a crash axe, and Netanyahu called him suicidal and radicalized while ordering a full security review of foreign carriers flying to Israel.

- Source: Israel Today
- Canonical URL: https://israeltoday.news/article/netanyahu-orders-security-review-flydubai-attack-oman
- Author: Amir Doron
- Section: Security
- Published: 2026-10-04T22:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-04T22:00:00.000Z
- Tags: Aviation, Oman, Netanyahu

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Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered a full security review of international flights into Israel after an Omani co-pilot attacked the captain of flydubai flight 1073 with a crash axe, sending the plane into a sharp descent before the captain reopened the cockpit door and passengers and crew helped retake control. The aircraft, carrying roughly 180 people from Dubai toward Tel Aviv, made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on 2 October. Everyone survived.

Netanyahu directed National Security Council head Shmuel Ben Ezra to appoint an examiner to review all aspects of foreign civil aviation security flying into Israel. He described the suspected attacker, identified as Omani national Hamam al Hammami, as suicidal and as having undergone Islamic radical indoctrination, and in a video recorded the day before the attack warned do not mess with us, not now and not ever, our long arm will reach you anywhere.

Al Hammami's background raises the question the review is meant to answer. He had already been blocked from flying for Oman Air over radical views, reassigned to desk duties, and had since resigned, yet was still cleared to co-pilot a flight bound for Tel Aviv on a different carrier, from a country, Oman, that has no diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel's ambassador to the UAE, Yossi Avraham Shelley, was the official who identified the suspect.

Israel's Transportation Ministry has placed responsibility with flydubai and UAE security protocols rather than with Israeli procedures, a framing that puts the review's findings on foreign soil before they reach Israel's own. The attack already forced El Al, Arkia and Israir into emergency repatriation flights for passengers stranded by flydubai's suspended service. The security review now asks the harder question underneath that logistics problem: how a pilot with a known radicalization flag was still in a cockpit on a route to Israel at all.

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Originally published by Israel Today. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://israeltoday.news/article/netanyahu-orders-security-review-flydubai-attack-oman.