U.S. media outlets overnight Friday into Saturday revealed the identity of the Omani pilot who stabbed the captain of a flydubai flight to Israel on Wednesday and tried to crash the plane with its Israeli passengers on board.
Hammam al-Hamami, whose previous employment with Oman Air ended amid suspicions that he had become radicalized, admitted during questioning that he intended to crash the plane in Israeli territory, ABC News reported, citing sources familiar with the investigation. The sources told the network that he was “cooperating” with investigators in the United Arab Emirates in an investigation that Israel is also expected to take an active part in, according to reports.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported that he had been suspended from flying for Oman Air, stressed that it remains unclear whether those suspicions were later passed on to flydubai before the airline hired him.
Al-Hamami after he was subdued by Israeli passengers following the stabbing
CNN also reported early Saturday, citing three sources including an Israeli official, that the suspect was Hammam al-Hamami. According to the network, he is an Omani citizen but was born in the United Arab Emirates to an Omani father and a Syrian mother, and spent part of his life in the UAE.
According to a LinkedIn account bearing his name, he worked for Oman Air for seven years before leaving Oman’s national carrier in February 2025. He joined Moroccan carrier Royal Air Maroc in June 2025 but left six months later, in January 2026. His LinkedIn profile did not list his subsequent employment with flydubai, which began this year.
According to ABC News, in 2024, while he was still a co-pilot with Oman Air, “extremist materials” were found in his possession. As a result, the airline decided to remove him from flying duties, though he continued working for the company in an administrative role. As noted, reports said it remains unclear whether that information was later passed on to the other airlines he worked for, Royal Air Maroc and flydubai.
CNN reported that only two posts appeared on the pilot’s LinkedIn profile, both published Wednesday, nine hours after the attack. The network said it was unclear who uploaded the posts but raised the possibility that they had been scheduled in advance.
According to the report, the first post contained a series of videos filmed in the cockpits of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The flydubai plane that al-Hamami allegedly tried to crash was also a 737 MAX.
CNN said one of the videos was filmed at Dubai International Airport, with the person recording it zooming in on an El Al aircraft. A cockpit display visible in the video showed the flight number of the flight the person filming was operating at the time, an Oman Air flight from Dubai to Muscat on October 11, 2023, several days after the Hamas-led October 7 massacre in Israel.
The post included additional videos showing El Al aircraft, as well as one Arkia plane. It ended with an image of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s successor, who was also killed by the United States.
The second post published on the now-deleted LinkedIn account included an AI-generated image depicting the three cities considered holy in Islam — Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem — connected by a continuous glowing path, according to CNN. A song playing in the background included declarations against “humiliation,” with the speaker saying he was not afraid of death and would defend his honor.
According to the profile, al-Hamami studied at Buckinghamshire New University in England. A university official confirmed to CNN that a person by that name completed a three-year distance-learning program, graduating in 2023 with a degree in aviation management.
CNN also reported that an account on X, formerly Twitter, belonging to a person with the suspect’s name and since deleted contained expressions of extremist religious views.
In several posts, for example, he described his mother’s difficulty finding him a prospective wife who would agree to his requirement that she wear a niqab, the Muslim face covering that leaves only a narrow opening for the eyes.
“They all refused. Then my mother told them, ‘My son is a pilot,’ and suddenly they all agreed,” read a February 2022 post.
In another post, he expressed opposition to men and women working together.
“How many respectable, religious young women have been ruined in mixed-gender workplaces and manipulated?” read the January 2022 post.