Donald Trump said the FlyDubai co-pilot accused of stabbing the captain and attempting to seize control of a passenger jet may have links to Iran’s military, while issuing a sharp warning to Tehran.
The co-pilot allegedly attacked the captain as the aircraft traveled from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday, in what appeared to be an attempt to bring the plane down.
A catastrophe was avoided when the injured captain opened the cockpit door, allowing passengers to restrain the attacker. More than 170 people, most of them Israelis, were on board.
Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Trump said his administration was investigating whether the co-pilot had connections to Iran or its elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
‘We’re working on it right now and being very open with us,’ Trump said.
Asked whether the co-pilot was linked to Iran or the IRGC, Trump replied: ‘I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is yes. But we’re working on it right now.’
Trump warned that the United States would punish Iran if the co-pilot were found to have ties to the regime and it was determined that Tehran had supported the attack.
‘They’ll be hit very hard,’ he said, delivering a five-word warning. ‘Don’t worry.’
President Trump said he believes the co-pilot who stabbed the captain of a FlyDubai passenger flight bound for Tel Aviv was likely connected to Iran.
This undated image, shared on the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s social media accounts, shows Indian Captain Smit Machchhar. He was flying a FlyDubai aircraft that diverted to Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing on Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Yaniv Hayoun, Or Fradilov, Dr Shota Musayev and his wife, Sigalit, whom he called ‘heroes’ for helping prevent a disaster aboard a FlyDubai flight traveling from the United Arab Emirates to Israel.
‘We know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination. That appears to be something we are gathering from his personal information,’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News.
Two Israeli security officials said their initial assessment was that the co-pilot, identified as an Omani national, had probably acted alone. The investigation, however, was continuing.
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Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 reported that the aircraft descended more than 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds while flying over Saudi Arabia on its route from the United Arab Emirates to Israel.
Despite the dramatic incident, all passengers remained safe.
The co-pilot and captain were both hospitalized, according to officials at Tabuk airport. The plane landed there in an emergency after passengers subdued the co-pilot.
Trump also praised Boeing and chief executive Kelly Ortberg in a social media post Thursday morning, crediting the 737 MAX with enduring extreme forces as the aircraft rapidly descended before recovering.
‘Congratulations to the great Boeing Company for producing a plane, the 737 Max, that was able to withstand G Forces and Strain far beyond what it was designed and expected to do,’ he wrote.
‘It was an amazing show of precise and powerful structural planning and design. It is about time that The Boeing Company, which builds, by far, the finest commercial airliners in the sky, was given credit for this airplane’s incredible ‘genius!’ To Kelly Ortberg, and all of his officers and associates at Boeing, congratulations on a job well done!!!’
Images from the flight showed Captain Machchhar bloodied and breathing through an oxygen mask after the stabbing.
A fellow pilot has also now claimed the assailant – who is believed to be an Omani national – was a religious extremist.
Speaking in Hebrew on Israel’s Channel 16, foreign editor and news anchor Yosef Yisrael described how he spoke to a colleague of the attacker, who wishes to remain anonymous.
In a translated version, Mr Yisrael reads out how the violent pilot ‘was someone characterised by very strange behaviour, especially around religious observances that were out of step with his surroundings [at Flydubai]. For instance, he used to pray a lot, and would not shake hands with women’.
Mr Yisrael said his source ‘expressed contrition’ and said Flydubai had ‘betrayed Israel’.
‘There is no other way to put it, we hired the services of a terrorist and nearly caused the deaths of 180 people,’ Mr Yisrael said the man told him. ‘Usually only Emiratis fly to Israel. It is not clear how he got on this flight.’
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