FlyDubai co-pilot who nearly crashed plane was barred from flying by Oman over extremism concerns

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The FlyDubai co-pilot who officials said nearly crashed a Tel Aviv-bound flight with 182 people aboard was barred from flying by his native Oman over concerns he had adopted extremist views, a person familiar with the matter said Saturday.

The co-pilot was subsequently hired by the United Arab Emirates-based airline, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. It was not immediately clear to what extent he was vetted when he was hired in the Emirates. Oman’s move to bar the co-pilot from flying was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The attack left the region’s travel industry in crisis, raising questions about aviation security and further unsettling a Middle East already shaken by the U.S.-Iran war. A regional investigation is underway.

The United Arab Emirates has canceled all flights to Israel, complicating travel for hundreds of passengers who fly between the countries on a typical day. Israel and the UAE agreed on repatriation flights, beginning Friday, to bring back passengers stranded in the UAE after commercial travel between the two countries was suspended, according to an Israeli official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The first repatriation flight left the UAE shortly before 11 p.m. and landed in Tel Aviv just after 1 a.m., according to the Ben Gurion International Airport website.

The airport listed carriers Arkia and Israir with flights scheduled to arrive from Dubai early Saturday. El Al was expected to fly passengers from Dubai to Israel on Sunday.

Dubai has been a popular destination for Israelis since Israel and the UAE established ties in 2020 as part of the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords to normalize ties between Israel and Arab countries.

Attacks raises questions about extremism

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters that early information he’s received suggests links between the attack and Tehran but did not elaborate. Trump also said that if it is determined that Iranian agents were behind the attack, the United States will “hit them very hard.”

Israeli investigators are involved in the probe but the Emiratis are in the lead, according to an official who wasn’t authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity. It’s unclear if the attacker was part of a group, said the official, adding that there is currently no evidence of a link with Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the co-pilot had undergone “Islamist radicalization,” but has provided no evidence to back the assertion.

“We are now investigating whether he was sent, and whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price,” Netanyahu said in a video message on Friday.

UAE senior diplomatic adviser Anwar Gargash on Friday called the FlyDubai attack a “dangerous terrorist act” in a post on X. He credited the flight captain for preventing a catastrophe.

The moment is a test for the UAE government, which has burnished a reputation for building effective measures against extremist activities but has also bristled in the past over criticism of security lapses.

“The Emiratis are going to be interested in protecting their reputation,” said Jon Alterman, chair of Global Security and Geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “They believe people should see them as a place that’s very secure, not a place that has serious lapses.”

The FlyDubai flight plummeted to 15,000 feet

Details of the harrowing flight, which other crew members on board landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday continue to emerge.

Smit Machchhar, the wounded captain who has been hailed as one of the heroes of the flight, and the co-pilot were transferred on Thursday from Saudi Arabia to the UAE, the kingdom said.

Machchhar is recovering in an Abu Dhabi hospital. He spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a televised video call Friday, describing the terror he faced after being attacked in the closed cockpit.

“I had so many wounds. I had fallen down,” he said, his head bandaged, as he broke into sobs. “I was fighting for my life. At one point, I realized that if I didn’t get up … then passengers would lose their lives.”

The first signs of trouble came more than two hours into the flight when the aircraft suddenly dropped to 16,600 feet — the sharpest altitude drop recorded by data tracking platforms. But moments before the nosedive, passengers seated near the front of the plane heard sounds of a fight inside the cockpit, said passenger Daniel Schlichter, who was seated in the second row.

Seconds later, it ascended to 21,725 feet before soon dropping back to 15,000 feet, which it maintained until safely landing more than an hour later.

“The plane started going down very quickly and we all went back backwards, like the gravity took us backwards,” Schlichter said. The shouting of the children as the plane plummeted, he added, was “horrific.”

“One of the things that I will never forget is the shouting of the children,” Schlichter said. “I could hear the children shouting, ‘We don’t want to die! We don’t want to die!’ ”

The captain managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to enter and restrain the attacker as the Boeing 737 — with 174 passengers and eight crew members, most of them Israelis — descended sharply.

The passengers wrestled the co-pilot from the cockpit and onto the floor of the main cabin where they bound his hands with headphones. They laid the wounded pilot inches from him, and a dentist attended to his wounds. Schlichter and the dentist, Dr. Shota Musayev, both said there was no visible knife or other weapon at the front of the aircraft.

“I could see all the blood on the floor, and I couldn’t believe he would still be alive because he had so many injuries,” Schlichter said of the captain.

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Madhani reported from Jerusalem and Johnson reported from Washington. AP writers Sally Abou AlJoud in Brussels, Sam Metz in Ramallah, West Bank, Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed reporting.