FlyDubai suspected attacker intended to crash plane into Tel Aviv airport, sources say
A plane carrying passengers from an earlier Flydubai flight that was diverted to Saudi Arabia arrives at Ben Gurion Airport on Sept. 30, 2026, in Tzafria, Israel. (Erik Marmor/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The alleged attacker on the FlyDubai flight to Israel was intending to crash the plane into Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, according to two senior U.S. officials and an Israeli source familiar with the investigation.
As ABC News has previously reported, Hamam Al-Hammani, an Omani national, had been flagged by Oman Air as a security risk and was suspended as a trainee copilot for that airline in 2024 for possessing extremist materials, according to senior intelligence and law enforcement officials, raising questions about how he was hired at FlyDubai.
Officials investigating the incident are still trying to determine how the suspected attacker was subsequently permitted to fly for FlyDubai and how he ended up as the first officer in the cockpit of a plane headed for Israel, the sources said.
“We recognize that there are many questions at this stage; however, the circumstances surrounding the incident are still under investigation,” FlyDubai said in a statement to ABC News on Saturday.
“We are therefore not in a position to comment further beyond our published statements. We remain fully committed to supporting the ongoing investigation and are in close coordination with the relevant government authorities and regulators.”
FlyDubai issued a statement earlier Friday, attributed to its chief executive officer, saying that, at the request of the authorities, FlyDubai had “temporarily suspended operations to Tel Aviv until further notice,” and saying “a full official investigation, led by the relevant authorities and fully supported by FlyDubai, is underway.”
A disaster was averted when the flight’s captain, Smit Machchhar, fought back and a number of passengers subdued and restrained the attacker, who plunged the plane thousands of feet in an apparent attempt to crash it, in what Israeli officials are saying was an act of terror.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the intention was to “crash the plane, killing everyone on board” Flight 1073 from Dubai.
A passenger, Yaniv Hayun, was able to drag the suspect from the cockpit, take control of the plane and level it before a third pilot took over and flew the jet to Saudi Arabia, according to other passengers.
The plane was diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, where it made an emergency landing.
Al-Hammami was transferred Thursday from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates and remains in custody.
“He came to crash the plane with all passengers on board,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his office. “We are investigating whether he was sent, and whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
This photograph shows a Ukrainian long-range drone launched by servicemen of the 9th Kairos Battalion of the “Madyar’s Birds” from an undisclosed location in Ukraine, on May 16, 2026. (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Ukrainian drones targeted Moscow again in the early hours of Thursday morning, according to the city’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, marking the fourth consecutive day of Ukrainian long-range attacks on the Russian capital.
Sobyanin said in posts to Telegram that at least 15 Ukrainian drones were intercepted en route to the capital overnight, with no damage or casualties reported. Emergency responders were dispatched to sites where drones crashed or debris fell, Sobyanin said.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, announced on Telegram that temporary flight restrictions were introduced at two of the capital’s four international airports — Vnukovo Airport to the southwest of Moscow and Zhukovsky Airport to the southeast of the city.
The drones targeting Moscow were among at least 330 Ukrainian drones reported to be shot down by Russia’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday night and into Thursday morning.
Rosaviatsiya said that flight restrictions were also introduced at airports in the cities of Sochi and Gelendzhik on Russia’s Black Sea coast, plus in the city of Krasnodar in southern Russia. All three cities are in the Krasnodar Krai region.
Regional Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said in a post to Telegram that a “drone hazard” warning was in effect for the entire territory.
Drone debris, Kondratyev said, hit an apartment building in the city of Krasnodar resulting in a fire and injuring two people. Several homes in the district of Seversky, to the southeast of Krasnodar, were also damaged by a drone attack with one person injured, Kondratyev said.
But Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said on Telegram that a major oil refinery in the region was also targeted in the overnight attack.
The Afipsky Refinery, Kovalenko said, “has been damaged and a fire broke out on its premises.” The facility sits just south of Krasnodar and has already been attacked twice by Ukrainian drones — first in February 2025 and again in March 2026.
Russia continued its own long-range strikes into Ukraine overnight into Thursday morning. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 221 drones in its latest barrage, of which 195 drones were intercepted or otherwise suppressed.
Both missiles and 21 drones impacted across nine locations, the air force said.
President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for bilateral talks at Bestepe Presidential Compound during the NATO Summit on July 8, 2026 in Ankara, Turkey. (Win Mcnamee/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left last week’s NATO summit armed with a valuable commitment from President Donald Trump — that Kyiv would get approval to produce vital interceptor missiles for the Patriot air defense system, which since 2023 has helped defend Ukraine’s skies against Russian aircraft, drones and ballistic missiles.
Zelenskyy and his top officials have long warned that Ukraine needs more air defense systems and far more ammunition to blunt Russia’s daily long-range strikes. In recent weeks and with interceptor missile stocks reportedly running low, those warnings have become more dire.
Trump’s approval for Kyiv to get a production license to produce Patriot interceptors on home soil is “really good news for Ukraine,” Chrystia Freeland, previously Canada’s deputy prime minister and now an economic adviser to Zelenskyy, told ABC News on the sidelines of the Chatham House think tank’s conference in London last week.
“It would be even better if they were getting Patriots right now, because they’re being hammered,” Freeland added. “It’s great to get the licenses. But between getting the licenses and actually being able to make the Patriot [missiles] to defend themselves, it’s going to take time. And during that time, lots of people are going to die.”
As civilian casualties in Ukraine rise, securing more air defense systems and ammunition are a priority for Kyiv, Zelenskyy has said repeatedly. Russian strikes killed at least 265 civilians in Ukraine and injured 1,816 in June, senior United Nations official Rosemary DiCarlo told the body’s Security Council earlier this month.
The combined casualty total for June is the highest recorded since the first months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, DiCarlo said. Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, a top U.N. official told the Security Council on Thursday.
In a post to X on Monday, Zelenskyy said that he and Trump “have reached an important deal on licenses to produce Patriot systems. Our teams are now working to implement this truly historic political agreement. We worked toward this for a very long time.”
Trump said during his warm meeting with Zelenskyy in the Turkish capital Ankara that the two leaders had developed a “good relationship.” The friendly exchange was a far cry from the infamous bilateral meeting at the White House last year which devolved into a heated public argument, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance openly admonishing Zelenskyy.
Freeland said that while Trump’s backing was welcome in Kyiv, Ukrainian leaders were focused on the bigger strategic picture. “They’re playing 100% to necessity. Ukrainians aren’t fighting to put on a show for Trump. They’re fighting because otherwise they will die,” she said.
“Trump does like a winner. He is not averse to flip flops. And I do think the stronger Ukrainians are the more likely they are to get his support,” Freeland added.
The Ankara declaration — NATO allies traditionally issue a joint communique to mark the end of each summit — said that Ukraine “contributes to transatlantic security” and is in line to receive some $80 billion in allied funding across 2026, with 2027 funding to be “at least equivalent.”
“Allies stand united in our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” the statement read.
The outcome was a positive one for Ukraine, Freeland said. “I would emphasize that the Ukrainians are making their own luck. I think the better they do, the more enthusiasm there is for supporting them. I think the Ukrainians recognize,” she said.
European allies, in particular, Freeland said, had shown they “are prepared to hang in there.” She added, “I think neither the Russians nor the Americans thought that Europe could do it.”
Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor is now in its fifth year, the latest round of conflict having followed a lower-intensity conflict which began in 2014 with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its fomentation of separatist rebellion in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
A campaign that was designed to deliver a rapid Russian victory has now lasted longer than World War One, with Kyiv claiming to have inflicted nearly 1.5 million casualties on the invading forces while Russia’s ongoing offensives in the east of the country remain at a glacial pace.
Ukrainian long-range strikes into Russia, meanwhile, have increased exponentially in scale and intensity, putting particular pressure on the country’s lucrative oil production, refining and export sectors. Ukrainian drones are also increasingly targeting the supply routes into Crimea, seeking to effectively blockade the occupied peninsula from afar.
Ukraine’s foreign partners have been lauding the country’s reported successes. Even Trump, who famously suggested last year that Ukraine did not “have the cards” to play, said last month that Zelenskyy was “doing pretty well” in the showdown with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Both the Trump administration and former President Joe Biden’s administration had put pressure on Kyiv to refrain from attacking certain targets, with Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil facilities reportedly a particularly sensitive subject under both administrations.
But Ukraine’s ongoing success on that front, Freeland said, showed it had been “a mistake to ask the Ukrainians to tie one hand behind their back.”
“One of the things that has changed is Ukrainians are now using their own weapons and they’re making their own weapons, and that means they don’t need to ask anyone’s permission for where they strike. And I do think that’s made a big difference,” she added.
Though the wartime narrative appears to be swinging somewhat in Ukraine’s favor, the country’s cities remain under near-constant fire and Kyiv’s forces do not appear able to liberate significant territory still occupied by Russian troops. In his latest casualty update in February, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had lost at least 55,000 soldiers killed since 2022.
Ukraine also still appears to be frozen out of NATO membership in the short term, despite Zelenskyy’s repeated and recent appeals for the alliance to set out a clear roadmap for Ukraine’s accession, which allies have repeatedly said they support in principle.
“I have actually heard, behind closed doors and also in public, more and more European leaders saying Russia shouldn’t have a veto on who is in NATO, and Ukraine now has the strongest army in Europe, we should have them on our team,” Freeland said.
Moscow and Kyiv still appear far apart on the key issues in any future settlement. Though Putin has claimed a willingness to negotiate, he is still refusing to engage directly with Zelenskyy and is still demanding a raft of major Ukrainian concessions in exchange for peace.
“I think it’s impossible to foresee what will happen next,” Freeland said when asked about the war’s outlook. “Where are we right now? We know that the Ukrainians are doing well … We know that Russia is suffering more than it has since the beginning of the war.”
“I think that the view that Ukraine was about to collapse was always overdone. And I think that was a line that Russia pushed in order to get Western allies, particularly the United States, to push Ukraine to surrender. And they were effective, for a while,” she added.
“What I think is important for us to recognize and what is absolutely true, is Ukraine’s success right now is showing us that if we give them the tools, they will finish the job,” Freeland said.
