An attack by the copilot on the pilot during a Flydubai flight has raised many questions regarding aviation security, and some of the official versions of the incident have come under scrutiny from online commentators and aviation enthusiasts. About two and a half hours after Flight FZ1073 departed from Dubai International Airport on Wednesday, it went into a sharp descent before eventually making an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. Media reports said the copilot attacked Captain Smit Machchhar.
Passengers were able to overpower the copilot, identified by media as Hamam al-Hammami, after Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door during the attack, which the prosecutor general of the United Arab Emirates said was carried out with the cockpit’s crash axe. While investigators continue working to establish a motive for the attack, several questions have arisen about the incident more generally across social media. Here are five questions that are being asked: Al-Hammami has been identified as an Omani national, according to media reports.
On Friday, The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources as saying that Omani authorities previously blocked the suspect from flying in the country due to concerns over his ideological views. On Saturday, CNN reported, quoting a regional diplomatic source, that the copilot had also been removed from flight training over similar concerns and was later reassigned to another position. It added, quoting two sources familiar with the matter, that the pilot was removed from a job at Oman’s national airline last year over concerns about his views.
It remains unclear how al-Hammami managed to get the Flydubai route despite these security concerns. Reports have emerged that Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door while covered in blood, allowing passengers to subdue the copilot. One of those who subdued al-Hammami was Yaniv Hayoun, whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a plumber.
In a video with Netanyahu, who met him at the airport, Hayoun, 50, was asked how he knew what to do at the plane’s controls before another pilot took control. He said: “I watch Air Crash Investigation, Mr Prime Minister.” “I jumped back, grabbed the controls and started pulling back the handles” the way he had seen in the Canadian investigation show, in which experts analyse plane crashes. People on social media have questioned how a plumber could have handled an aircraft in the air.
According to the flight-tracking website Flightradar24, the Flydubai flight rapidly descended about two and a half hours after takeoff, dropping more than 5,180 metres (17,000ft) in less than two minutes. While the midair drop caused mass panic among passengers, no one was reportedly harmed, according to the publicly available information about the incident. An Air India flight that dropped 90 metres (300ft) during turbulence in August injured at least 17 passengers.
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