Before Flydubai Flight FZ1073 departed Dubai on September 30, the UAE transmitted the flight's details to Israeli authorities, as it does for every flight operating the Dubai-Tel Aviv route. The passenger manifest was included. So were the pilots' names and nationalities. Hamam al-Hammami, the Omani national who would attack Captain Smit Machchhar with a crash axe two hours later, was on that list. Israel reviewed the information. It raised no concerns.
This is the part of the story that is now generating as much official anxiety in Jerusalem as the attack itself. Al-Hammami had been removed by Oman Air for concerns about extremist views. This was known to investigators within hours of the attack landing in Tabuk, reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by AP diplomatic sources by Saturday October 3. The question of what Oman Air recorded, and what it communicated to any subsequent employer or aviation regulatory body, remains under UAE investigation. What is not under investigation is whether Israel received his name: it did.
Israel's Ministry of Transportation confirmed in writing, in a letter sent the day after the attack, that the Security Division of the Israeli Ministry of Transport bears responsibility for the security of inbound flights to Israel. The letter emerged in the middle of an institutional argument about which body was responsible for the vetting failure. The argument began immediately. The letter is a rare bureaucratic admission that came out before anyone had time to suppress it.
Security analysts have pointed to a structural gap that the flydubai case makes visible. International aviation vetting concentrates on criminal records, formal no-fly designations and government watchlists. The communication of internal airline personnel decisions, one carrier removing a pilot for internal conduct or belief concerns, does not move cleanly between airlines, especially across countries without formal diplomatic relations. Oman and Israel have none. Al-Hammami's Oman Air removal was not on any watchlist Flydubai or Israeli authorities could access through standard channels. He cleared three airlines in sequence. He was on the manifest. Israel said nothing.
Dubai Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum visited Machchhar in hospital on Saturday. The photograph, released on X, shows the crown prince beside the man who fought al-Hammami from the cockpit floor and opened the door to let passengers in. Flydubai flights to Tel Aviv remain suspended. The investigation is ongoing. The question of who bears responsibility for the failure has produced, so far, one letter from an Israeli ministry and a UAE prosecution. Neither is an answer.
