The co-pilot of a FlyDubai flight to Israel attacked the plane’s captain with a crash ax in an attempt to take control of the aircraft, the United Arab Emirates said Saturday. The statement from the U.A.E.’s attorney general, Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, signaled that the co-pilot likely didn’t need to smuggle a weapon on board Wednesday’s Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv. Instead, the co-pilot relied on a piece of safety equipment required by regulators around the world to attack the flight’s captain and send the plane into a dive that nearly tore the Boeing 737 MAX 8 apart.
Crash axes are stored on aircraft to be used in an emergency to either fight fires or cut through metal in a crash. U.A.E. aviation regulations require such an ax to be stored on board commercial flights. Typically, the tool resembles a short hatchet that has two sides—one that’s a traditional-looking blade and another that’s a claw or pick able to tear away metal or a window. The statement from Al Shamsi said the co-pilot “began executing his plan during the flight, attacking the captain inside the flight deck using a crash ax and attempting to take control of the aircraft’s flight controls.”“Investigations are continuing to establish the full circumstances, motives, and any links related to the incident, as well as to complete technical examinations and analysis of physical and digital evidence,” he said.
The statement didn’t identify the co-pilot. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the co-pilot, an Omani national named Hamam al-Hammami, had previously been banned from flying by Oman over concerns he had adopted radical ideological views. The use of a crash ax in the attack matches descriptions of the weapon provided in interviews by some passengers aboard the flight.
It also provides an explanation for why security officers didn’t detect a weapon at Dubai International Airport, considered by experts to have some of the world’s highest security standards as it has handled flights from Afghanistan, Iran and across the globe: The ax already was on the plane. Pilots who have regularly flown from Dubai recount strict searches through metal detectors. Air regulations ban all blades with sharp points and typically blunt knives longer than six centimeters.
The flight’s captain, pilot Smit Machchhar, suffered wounds to his head, hands and neck in the attack that would be consistent with being slashed by an ax. Witnesses described the cockpit as being soaked in blood by the time passengers and the crew entered it.“As I lay on the floor, I could feel the aircraft was going down, and I knew with absolute certainty, even when I was taking the blows, that ‘Smit, the door is just there’… and I opened it,” Machchhar recounted in a video call to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.“Though I was acting for my own life, at the same time I knew I cannot let all the others die.”.
Source: Wall Street Journal US Business · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing