What the hero who saved FlyDubai plane says about the incident

Here's some more about the hijacking incident on the FlyDubai plane that thankfully was thwarted:

The captain of the Flydubai jet targeted in Wednesday’s attempted hijacking said his co-pilot asked to pray just minutes before striking him from behind with a cockpit crash axe, as new evidence revealed the suspect’s apparent affinity for al-Qaeda and pro-al-Qaeda propaganda calling for further attacks on aircraft carrying Americans and Israelis.

Captain Smit Machchhar, who was badly wounded during the attack aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, gave his most detailed account yet of the ordeal Saturday in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“It was a normal flight,” Machchhar said, recalling that his co-pilot, 29-year-old Omani national Hamam al-Hammami, told him that he wanted to pray.

Machchhar said the request did not initially strike him as unusual and that he turned forward out of respect.

“Suddenly, after four or five minutes, there was a big blow to the back of my head,” he said.

“My first thought was that there was catastrophic damage to the aircraft,” Machchhar continued. “But after that, the blows kept coming, one after the other. That’s when I realized it’s not the aircraft, it’s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me.”

The United Arab Emirates’ attorney general revealed Saturday that Hammami had armed himself with the Boeing 737 MAX’s cockpit crash axe — an emergency tool kept aboard commercial aircraft — and attacked Machchhar before attempting to seize the flight controls in what Emirati authorities formally described as an attempted “terrorist attack.”

Badly injured and with his vision blurred by repeated blows to the head, Machchhar said he then felt the aircraft “sharply going down.”

He initially tried to open the cockpit door but was stopped by Hammami, who was also preventing crew members outside from entering with the door’s access code. Lying on the cockpit floor as he heard screams from the cabin, Machchhar said he summoned what strength he had left for one final attempt.

“I had one last fight left in me,” he said. “If I don’t do it, I’m going to die.”

Machchhar lunged for the door and managed to open it.

“People were waiting to pounce back, and take control, and the rest is what you know, sir,” he told Netanyahu.

He did the right thing. And thankfully lived to tell about it. Machchhar deserved many awards and accolades for his act of courage, and should also be promoted to more prominent jobs.

As for the terrorist himself, here's another part of his motivation besides the koran's indoctrination itself:

Al-Hammami, an Omani citizen, was born in the United Arab Emirates to an Omani father and Syrian mother and spent several years of his life in the UAE, according to CNN. An Israeli official and Saudi state media have confirmed his identity, according to the outlet.

CNN reviewed a LinkedIn profile bearing the name Hamam al-Hammami that said he worked at Oman Air for seven years, leaving in February 2025, before joining Royal Air Maroc in June 2025 and departing in January 2026. The page made no mention of Flydubai. The profile has since been deleted.

The suspect’s LinkedIn page reportedly said he studied at Buckinghamshire New University in England. A university source confirmed to CNN that a man by that name completed a three-year distance-learning course and graduated with a degree in aviation management in 2023. The outlet also reviewed a now-deleted X account that portrayed the Omani national as “deeply religious and misogynistic.”

In deleted posts, al-Hammami reportedly complained that his mother was having trouble finding him a bride willing to wear a niqab and give up her job once they were married.

“They all refused. Then my mother told them, ‘My son is a pilot,’ and they all suddenly agreed,” one post from February 2022 said, according to the outlet.

If he's still not married, I'm not sure what the drivel he wrote is about. He doesn't deserve to get married, and it's repulsive he'd expect a wife to don a niqab, and have no identity nor a job. This is another example of what's horrifyingly wrong with the Religion of Peace.

Here's more about what the hijacker used as a weapon on board:

The co-pilot accused of attacking his captain aboard an Israel-bound FlyDubai flight last week used the cockpit’s own emergency crash axe and was attempting a terrorist attack, United Arab Emirates authorities said Saturday.

UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi told the country’s state news agency that investigators had determined the co-pilot set out to commit a “terrorist act” aboard Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv on September 30. It was the first time officials had identified the weapon. Initial passenger accounts had reportedly pointed to a knife.

Large commercial aircraft generally carry a crash axe that crews can use to cut their way out of the cockpit during an emergency.

And that too is one of the most repugnant things about the hijacker. He should receive the death sentence, but who knows if he will? Even today, Saudi Arabia can't be overestimated on issues like these.