The flydubai co-pilot who stabbed his captain in a suspected attempt to crash the plane has told UAE interrogators he planned the attack before he was hired by the Dubai state-owned airline, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the probe. A third source briefed on the UAE probe said the co-pilot, an Omani national, had planned to crash last Wednesday's flight into Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. He had also operated a flight to Tel Aviv earlier this year and intended to hijack and crash the plane then, but opted not to, the source added. It was not immediately clear why the co-pilot changed his mind on that previous flight, although the co-pilot is thought to have known someone onboard, the source said. All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation. The co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073, which had been bound for Israel from Dubai, attacked the pilot with an emergency crash axe, the United Arab Emirates prosecutor general has said, calling the incident a "terrorist attack". Two sources have said the co-pilot is an Omani national named Hamam al-Hammami. Israeli officials have not named the co-pilot but have said he is from Oman. UAE authorities and flydubai have not publicly disclosed the co-pilot's identity. The UAE has not announced any formal charges against him and it is not known if he has appointed legal counsel. Oman has not commented on the incident. The two Israeli officials said the co-pilot told interrogators that he had applied for a job at Dubai state-owned flydubai after searching for airlines that fly to Tel Aviv. A multi-agency Australian counterterrorism unit is also investigating links to Australia of the co-pilot, who was once enrolled at RMIT University in Melbourne, Victoria. A fourth source said the co-pilot had studied there around a decade ago. Disaster on board flight FZ1073 was averted after passengers and crew subdued the co-pilot. The pilot, Indian national Smit Machchhar, survived the attack and has been hailed as a hero for managing to open the cockpit door. The plane was carrying more than 170 passengers and crew, most of them Israeli. A reserve flydubai pilot travelling on the flight took control of the aircraft and landed it at a regional airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia, where the co-pilot was detained by Saudi authorities and later transferred to the UAE on Thursday.
