The co-pilot at the centre of an attempted hijacking aboard a flydubai passenger jet had reportedly intended to fly the aircraft into Israel's Ben Gurion airport or a tall building in central Tel Aviv, according to accounts emerging from US and Israeli officials familiar with the investigation.
The suspect, identified in multiple reports as Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani national, has been described by those briefed on the probe as a "lone wolf" extremist who appears to have acted without direction from any organised militant network or foreign state.
The alleged plot unfolded last Wednesday aboard flight FZ1073, a Boeing 737 MAX carrying more than 180 passengers on a scheduled service from Dubai to Tel Aviv, one of the busiest routes linking the Gulf to Israel.
According to the United Arab Emirates' attorney-general, the co-pilot launched what was described as a "terrorist act" during the flight, assaulting and wounding the captain with the emergency crash axe stored inside the cockpit.
The captain, identified as Smit Machchhar, was incapacitated in the attack, but passengers on board managed to overpower the assailant before he could seize control of the aircraft, according to official accounts.
A second flight crew travelling as passengers on the jet then took command of the aircraft and diverted it, landing safely in Saudi Arabia rather than continuing to Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the co-pilot had undergone what he called "Islamist radical indoctrination," and credited the captain, the passengers and the relief crew with preventing what he characterised as a potential "9/11 disaster."
Details of the alleged intentions surfaced over the weekend as the suspect continued to be questioned by Emirati authorities, with Israeli representatives receiving updates on the progress of the interrogation.
Israeli media, citing sources with direct knowledge of the investigation, reported that the co-pilot told questioners he had planned to keep flying the aircraft normally once inside Israeli airspace, communicating with Ben Gurion airport as though nothing was wrong.
Under that scenario, he would have requested and received routine landing clearances from Israeli air traffic controllers, only to then dive the jet into the airport itself or into a tower block in central Tel Aviv, the reports said.
The sources quoted in the Israeli coverage suggested the method was modelled on the al-Qaeda attacks of 11 September 2001, in which hijacked airliners were flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Investigators are said to believe the suspect most likely operated alone, rather than as an agent of a radical organisation or on behalf of a foreign government, a conclusion that, if confirmed, would raise difficult questions about how an individual with extremist views could reach such a sensitive position.
The co-pilot reportedly also disclosed to interrogators that he had considered carrying out a similar hijacking and crash on an earlier flight to Tel Aviv, but abandoned the plan after realising he knew someone travelling on that aircraft.
Neither Emirati nor Israeli authorities have issued immediate comment on the specific claims attributed to the suspect, and the UAE's attorney-general, Hamad al-Shamsi, said on Saturday that the national investigation would establish the full circumstances, motives and any links connected to the incident, with findings to be published once concluded.
Attention is now turning to a series of apparent security failures, including how the suspect came to be recruited by flydubai and granted clearance to operate a flight carrying Israeli passengers into Tel Aviv.
Regional officials have said the co-pilot had been barred from flying by Oman's national carrier, Oman Air, and reassigned to an administrative role because of concerns about his extremist views, a significant red flag that did not prevent his subsequent hiring in the UAE.
He was later taken on by Dubai-based flydubai after undergoing standard security screening that, according to the officials, did not examine his background for indications of possible radicalisation.
Israeli aviation regulations add another layer of complication: pilots who hold citizenship of countries without formal diplomatic relations with Israel, such as Oman, are not permitted to operate flights into the country.
Regional officials told the Associated Press on Sunday that Emirati authorities had provided Israel with a list of passengers and crew before flight FZ1073 departed, suggesting some advance information was shared across the two countries.
Israel's Shin Bet domestic security agency said the transport ministry bears responsibility for vetting such manifests supplied by foreign airlines, a claim disputed by Transport Minister Miri Regev, who said her ministry never received the passenger and crew lists and that oversight for foreign-operated flights rested with the Shin Bet and the Mossad foreign intelligence service.
Netanyahu has instructed the head of Israel's National Security Council to review "all security aspects regarding foreign civil aviation to Israel," signalling a broader examination of procedures governing international carriers serving the country.
Separately, authorities in Australia are investigating the co-pilot's links to the country, after sources told local media that he had studied there between 2015 and 2017, a period that investigators may scrutinise for further clues about his path toward extremism.
The case has highlighted the vulnerability of commercial aviation to insider threats, where individuals with legitimate access to cockpits can exploit that trust, and has intensified scrutiny of how airlines, regulators and intelligence agencies share information about personnel across international borders.
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