Hamam al-Hammami, the Omani pilot who tried to crash the flydubai plane to Tel Aviv last week, had gathered intelligence during his previous visits to Israel, it emerged during his interrogation by the UAE. Earlier reports had suggested that al-Hammami intended to crash the plane into Israel’s Ben Gurion airport.
Al-Hammami reportedly revealed to the investigation officials that he intended to crash the plane carrying Israeli passengers months ago. He arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport several times as part of flights he undertook since he began working for flydubai, Hebrew media reported.
During his interrogation, al-Hammami said that on one such occasions in June, he devoted his entire stay to gathering intelligence and tracking the movements of people at Ben-Gurion Airport.
The plan was to attack in July. However, he called it off at the last moment because he was friends with one of the crew members on the plane. Al-Hammami decided to postpone the operation until he eventually boarded the same flight at the end of the previous month.
Meanwhile, other reports said al-Hammami planned the attack before he started working for the company.
A Wall Street Journal report blamed loose screening and an uncontrolled expansion policy on the part of flydubai for enabling al-Hammami to get behind the wheels of the plane.
According to the report, the airline began operations in 2009 and has been expanding rapidly since then. Its more than 1,300 pilots fly to 140 airports in cities such as Sarajevo, Damascus and Tashkent, often transporting workers from South and Southeast Asia to more profitable markets in Central Europe and the Middle East. Last year, the company recorded a 17% increase in the number of passengers in the Middle East.
To meet its needs, flydubai launched a pilot training program from scratch last year, and it operates its own flight training centre. The programme allowed Hammami, who had already been disqualified from flying by two different companies, to report to the company as a new pilot. The expedited programme also meant that screening was less rigorous, the report added.
