Numerous US media outlets identify the copilot who attempted to carry out a terror attack aboard a flydubai flight full of Israelis as 29-year-old Omani national Hamam al-Hammani.
CNN reports that a since-deleted LinkedIn with that name shows he worked at Oman Air for a seven-year period ending in February 2025, before starting at Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc in June 2025 and departing this January 2026. The network says the profile doesn’t mention flydubai but says a source familiar with the matter confirmed it was his account, which also says he studied at Buckinghamshire New University in England.
The report quotes a source at the university telling CNN that he studied remotely at the school for three years, graduating in 2023 with a degree in aviation management.
CNN also says that al-Hammani’s X and Instagram accounts have since been deleted, with the latter sharing two videos after the attack — one of which included footage of Israeli planes that were filmed from other cockpits, before ending with photos of former al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Jordanian triple agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who carried out a deadly suicide bombing in 2009 targeting a CIA base in Afghanistan.
The other post reportedly includes an AI image of Islam’s three holiest cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, while a defiant poem is recited in the background.
The master of a crude oil tanker has reported being struck by an unknown projectile 4 nautical miles east of Oman, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) says.
UKMTO says all crew are reported safe and no environmental impact is currently reported.
The first repatriation flight of Israelis stranded in Dubai due to the attempted terror attack on a flydubai flight have landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.
The Saudi Civil Defense says Saturday that shrapnel from an intercepted ballistic missile in Ahad Rafidah governorate in the Asir region injured one person, the Saudi state news agency reports.
The missile was fired on Friday by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group, it says.
The flydubai copilot who attempted to crash a plane full of Israelis earlier this week was banned from flying by Oman over concerns that he had been radicalized, people familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal.
Despite that, the copilot still flew flydubai’s Dubai to Tel Aviv route. On Wednesday, he stabbed the pilot and, according to witnesses, tried to crash the plane in an attempted terror attack.
The Journal did not determine if Muscat shared its concerns with other countries or airlines.
The Journal could not specify the nature of his radicalization, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday he “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination.”
A Channel 12 news report earlier said investigators had found he was indoctrinated into al-Qaeda ideology.
Flydubai and Oman’s government did not respond to The Journal’s requests for comment.
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