He Wrote of Violence Before He Acted; the Investigation Now Begins

There is a particular horror that attaches to the discovery of a person's private thoughts after they have committed an act of public violence—a horror that comes not from the act itself, which is already known, but from the realization that the signs were there, written in plain sight, and no one stopped him. In the days since the FlyDubai flight FZ1073 was diverted to Saudi Arabia after its co-pilot attacked the captain with a crash axe, a portrait of the accused man has emerged through his social media activity, deleted accounts, and the investigative work of journalists and counter-terrorism authorities. What they have found is a record of radicalization, misogyny, and a yearning for violence that he ultimately acted upon in a cockpit at 34,000 feet.

The co-pilot, identified by multiple outlets as Hammam al-Hammami, an Omani national, was the subject of investigations by authorities in the UAE, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Australia . On Saturday, the UAE's attorney-general announced that investigations had concluded the co-pilot attempted to commit a "terrorist act" by attacking the captain with a crash axe and attempting to seize control of the aircraft . The captain, Indian national Smit Machchhar, was wounded but managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to subdue the attacker. The plane landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, with all 174 people on board .

What has drawn particular attention is the content of al-Hammami's online activity. CNN, which analyzed nearly three thousand deleted posts from his Twitter account, described a pattern of "extremely conservative religious views" and misogyny . He reportedly wrote about his search for a wife, demanding that his future spouse wear a niqab and stop working after marriage. In one post, he recounted his mother's difficulty in finding him a match, writing that when women learned he was a pilot, "they suddenly all agreed" . He wrote against men and women working together, arguing that such environments corrupt religious women. The posts, as described by CNN, depict a man who celebrated the subjugation of women and the imposition of strict religious law.

In the hours after the attack, two posts appeared almost simultaneously on a LinkedIn account bearing his name. One featured cockpit footage of a Boeing 737 MAX, including a clip geolocated to Dubai International Airport showing an El Al aircraft, followed by images of Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as al-Qaeda's leader, and Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, an al-Qaeda operative who carried out a 2009 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA officers and contractors . A second post showed an AI-generated image linking Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, accompanied by a poem about refusing humiliation, fearing no death, and defending one's dignity . It remains unclear whether al-Hammami posted the content himself or had scheduled it in advance. The accounts were later deleted .

Questions have also emerged about his aviation history. He reportedly worked at Oman Air for approximately seven years but was removed from flight training due to concerns about his radical views and reassigned to other duties . He left Oman Air in February 2025, joined Royal Air Maroc in June 2025, and left in January 2026. A source in Israel told CNN he had been at FlyDubai for about eight months. His LinkedIn profile reportedly did not mention his employment at FlyDubai . Australian counter-terrorism authorities are investigating his time in the country, where he reportedly studied at a university on a student visa that was later cancelled .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacker had undergone "Islamist radical indoctrination" and was "suicidal," and that after being subdued he shouted "kill me, kill me" to the crew . An Israeli official told The Times of Israel that the co-pilot's social media accounts "clearly" showed he had been radicalized into jihadist ideology, and that he "talks about killing Jews" .

The UAE investigation is ongoing. Al-Hammami is expected to be transferred from Saudi Arabia to the UAE, where prosecutors will examine the full circumstances and motives of the attack . The posts, the warnings from his previous employer, the removal from flight training—all of these were visible in the months and years before he stepped into that cockpit. The question that remains is how a man with such a documented history of radicalization was permitted to sit at the controls of a commercial aircraft, and whether the systems meant to catch such warnings failed, or were never looking in the first place.

AI Image Disclaimer: All images in this article are AI-generated and are intended for illustrative purposes only.

Sources: Xinhua, The West Australian, BBC, CNN via Newsru, The Times of Israel via Zee News, World Journal