Omani co-pilot who stabbed Indian captain talked about killing Jews in his posts

The Omani flydubai co-pilot who stabbed Indian pilot Capt Smit Machchhar and tried to seize the flight had discussed killing Jews online and appeared to have been radicalised, Israeli officials said.Investigations are underway to determine whether copilot intended to crash the plane or the incident was linked to terrorism or Iran.New Delhi,Oct 2, 2026 13:12 ISTThe Omani copilot who stabbed the Indian pilot, Capt Smit Macchchhar and attempted to take over a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv had discussed killing Jews on social media, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.According to the Israeli official, the attacker also asked Emirati crew members to kill him, citing conversations with passengers aboard the flight.“This was a person who was willing to commit suicide,” the official said, according to The Times of Israel. “His social media accounts (say) clearly that he has been radicalised into jihadist ideology. He talks about killing Jews.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said investigations suggested that the man who stabbed his fellow pilot and tried to take over the flight had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination”.The Flydubai plane plunged more than 17,000 feet (5,200 metres) about two hours into its journey on Wednesday before passengers and crew overpowered the attacker and retook control, allowing the aircraft to land safely.Netanyahu told Fox News that it was looking “very likely” that the attacker, whom he identified as an Omani national, “was going to down the plane”.The Israeli official also said investigators could not yet establish the motive with certainty.“We can’t say for sure until the investigation’s over,” the official said. “But it certainly seems like he was a suicide actor who was probably going to try to down that plane.”Netanyahu told Fox News that once the attacker had been subdued and tied up by passengers and crew, he was “calling out to the aircrew ‘kill me, kill me’, so it's clear he was suicidal - that's not a question”.“And with all the passengers in there, and if you couple that with what I just told you about the Islamist tendencies, that radicalisation that were found in his background, I think... that'll give us a pretty good clue,” Netanyahu said.However, Netanyahu stressed that he did not want to draw any firm conclusions about the motive yet.Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) state news agency reported that investigations had begun there to determine “whether the incident was linked to any terrorist activity or purpose”.The Interior Ministry of Saudi Arabia, where the plane made an emergency landing, said both the pilot and co-pilot had been sent back to the UAE on Thursday morning after medical teams cleared them.UAE officials earlier claimed jurisdiction over the incident because the aircraft involved is registered in the UAE and flies under its flag.According to the Israeli official, the attacker was expected to be transferred to the UAE.“Our understanding is he’s going to be transferred to the UAE,” the official said, according to The Times of Israel. “We will be part of that investigation.”In the meantime, Israel is conducting its own internal investigation into the incident and making changes to its security procedures, the official said.Preliminary findings from a separate Israeli investigation suggested that the alleged attacker intended to crash the plane, an Israeli security source told BBC Arabic.The source said the investigation, led by Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, interviewed passengers after they arrived in Tel Aviv to establish what happened aboard the plane.Both US President Donald Trump and UAE officials have indicated to the media that Iran may be responsible for the incident, without definitively blaming Tehran.Trump told reporters on Thursday that Iran would be “hit very hard” if it was deemed to have been involved in the attack.Netanyahu, when asked earlier on Fox News whether there was any indication Iran was involved, said: “It's too early to say.”Netanyahu said pilots from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel were usually not allowed to fly there when asked how the suspected Omani pilot came to be on the plane.He added: “Obviously there was a loophole here, and we're taking care of that among other things... with the full co-operation, I have to say, of the Emirati government, so we're both interested in making sure this doesn't happen again.”Oman has not formally established official ties with Israel, unlike the UAE.Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu described the stabbed pilot, Indian national Capt Smit Machchhar, as a “hero”.India's ambassador to the UAE, Deepak Mittal, visited Captain Machhar in hospital on Thursday. The Indian Mission said on social media that he was “in good health and recovering well”.Flydubai flight FZ1073, with more than 170 people on board, took off from Dubai International Airport in the UAE at 03:05 GMT (07:05 local time) en route to Ben Gurion Airport.About two hours later, the plane's altitude dropped by 17,000 feet, according to the plane-tracking website Flightradar24. Minutes later, the aircraft signalled an emergency code.At about 05:40, the plane, which had briefly entered Jordanian airspace, looped back into Saudi Arabia, where it later began a manual descent and landed safely at Tabuk Airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia.- Ends