Australian authorities are investigating the connections between the country and the Flydubai co-pilot who attempted to seize control of an airliner bound for Israel. The Australian Federal Police confirmed to the BBC that it is looking into “the man’s links to Australia”, with state police and the country’s security agency involved and an update promised “at the appropriate time”.
The co-pilot is alleged to have attacked the captain with a crash axe on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv on 30 September, carrying more than 170 passengers. Two and a half hours into the journey the aircraft plunged 17,000ft, according to the UAE prosecutor general, before passengers and crew overcame the attacker and regained control. The plane was diverted to Saudi Arabia. Images of the aircraft afterwards appeared to show damage to its tail fin.
A visa trail
Australian authorities have not publicly named the man, who has been identified by Reuters, CNN and the New York Times as Hamam al-Hammami. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is an Omani national.
Sources familiar with the case told Australian media that the co-pilot was issued a student visa in 2014 and studied in Australia between 2015 and 2017 before leaving the country. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that his student visa was cancelled in 2019 because he was no longer enrolled in a course and therefore no longer eligible for it.
Counter-terrorism officials will examine whether the man was radicalised while in Australia, the ABC reported.
A murky picture
The investigation spans several jurisdictions with competing interests. The UAE prosecutor general has said his office is investigating the incident and any possible motives. Australia is treating it as a counter-terrorism and security matter rather than simply a foreign criminal case. Israel’s focus is on what the attempt was intended to achieve.
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Why it matters
Aviation security regimes assume a pilot is a known, vetted and monitored individual. An incident of this kind turns that assumption inside out, and it does so in a way that leaves investigators dependent on records held in several countries. The decision to cancel the visa in 2019 for a simple administrative reason now sits in a very different context, and raises questions about how much warning a host country can realistically extract from its own visa and education systems.
What happens next
The AFP has said only that an update will come at the appropriate time. Expect further questions about the man’s movements in Australia between 2015 and 2017, and about whether counter-terrorism authorities had flagged his file before he left.
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