The suspect, an Omani national named Hammam al-Hammami, told the investigators that he wanted to intentionally crash the plane and that he ‘wasn’t afraid of death’, the Wall Street Journal reported. Chilling revelations are coming to fore about the flydubai co-pilot, who is accused of attacking his Indian colleague inside the cockpit with a crash axe, while trying to crash the plane with nearly 170 people onboard.
His social media handles, which are now deleted, revealed his radical views, according to a CNN report. “What makes aviation and flight training so beautiful is that it’s anything but routine. The accused pilot, whom Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called ‘radicalised’, allegedly posted about mixed-gender workplaces having a corrupting effect on women. He also discussed the difficulties his mother faced in finding him prospective bride willing to accept his conditions, including wearing a niqab and not working after marriage. “They all refused. As the investigators are trying to piece together the information about him and trying to understand how he became radicalised, his Syria connection is under focus. al-Hammami reportedly spent some time in the conflict-torn country during its long civil war. Investigators are reportedly looking into the possibility he may have started to get radicalised in Syria when Islamist rebels fought against the ruling Assad regime.
This confession stands in stark contrast with his love for flying which is evident from one of his social media posts shared in June 2022. Then my mother told them, ‘My son is a pilot,’ and they all suddenly agreed,” al-Hamammi reportedly said in post in February 2022.
“How many respectable, religious girls have been ruined in mixed-gender work environments and manipulated?” a post from January 2022 said, CNN reported. Twenty-nine-year-old al-Hamammi was born to an Omani father and Syrian mother and has lived in Dubai, according to officials.
Earlier reports indicated that al-Hammami was radicalised and held extremist views which is why he was allegedly fired from Oman’s national airline last year. There are moments you never forget—like your very first solo flight, or your first time landing an aircraft with passengers on board,” the post, written in Arabic, said, according to the WSJ. al-Hammami is currently being investigated in the United Arab Emirates after a security team brought him in on Thursday morning following the crash scare on flydubai flight a day earlier. He was also questioned by the Saudi authorities after the flight made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
