Investigators seek motive in FlyDubai cockpit attack

INVESTIGATORS on Thursday (Oct 1) were trying to determine what motivated the co-pilot on a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv to stab the pilot, a midair cockpit attack that nearly resulted in catastrophe.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel suggested in a television interview on Thursday that the co-pilot, whom Israeli officials have identified as an Omani citizen, was ideologically motivated.

“We know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination,” Netanyahu told Fox News, saying that investigators had learned this from the man’s “personal information.” He did not provide further details, and the man’s identity had not been made public.

In a video released by Netanyahu’s office on Thursday, Yaniv Hayoun, an Israeli passenger said to be the first to grab the co-pilot, putting him in a chokehold and dragging him out of the cockpit, recounted him saying “Kill me! Kill me!” in English. Hayoun said he took that to mean that “he had failed in his mission and preferred to die.”

Hayoun appears to be the only passenger on the FlyDubai flight to have reported that.

The United Arab Emirates said on Thursday that it would take the lead in investigating whether the attack was linked to terrorism.

Both the wounded pilot and co-pilot have been transferred from Saudi Arabia, where the plane made an emergency landing, to the UAE.

Flight 1073 left Dubai early on Wednesday with 174 passengers and eight crew members, according to authorities in Saudi Arabia.

The aircraft lurched and descended so violently during the tumult in the cockpit that its rudder was damaged. The Boeing 737 Max 8 plummeted more than 16,000 feet in 30 seconds.

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A group of passengers is credited with saving the aircraft by rushing into the cockpit and subduing the co-pilot. One passenger said the attacker’s hands were bound with headphone wire until crew members brought zip ties.

Netanyahu has praised the pilot, Capt. Smit Machchhar, an Indian citizen, for unlatching the cockpit door as he was being attacked.

Netanyahu told CNN on Wednesday night that the actions of Machchhar and the Israeli passengers “managed to prevent a 9/11 disaster.”

Many questions remain about the attack, including whether the co-pilot had acted alone; what his motives were; and if his intention was to crash the plane or take control of it and land it in a third country. NYTIMES