Terror in the Cockpit: The Flydubai Hijacking Attempt | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

The Team House

The hosts dissect the attempted cockpit hijacking of Flydubai Flight 1073, highlighting severe aviation security failures and the distinction between lone-wolf extremism and state-sponsored terrorism. The

Key takeaways

• Flydubai co-pilot attacked captain with a crash axe; investigation reveals public extremist social media posts were missed by vetting agencies in Oman and Israel.
• UK suspects Salam and Rahman conducted pre-attack surveillance for chlorine bomb plots targeting Jewish sites, potentially under IRGC direction via third-party handlers.

Main topics

• Flydubai Flight 1073 hijacking attempt
• Aviation security and insider threats

Notable quotes

terrorism is not a problem until it is.

Conclusion

The episode underscores how intelligence gaps and fragmented foreign p

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) This episode is presented by Vare Watches. Go to varewatches.com slash the team house. Speaker 5 (0:06) Hey everybody, we're Speaker 6 (0:07) back for another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Andy Milburn, Jonathan Hackett, and Mark Polymeropoulos. A lot happening, as usual. The big story, on September 30th, flight Dubai flight. I was trying to practice that too, because I knew I would trip it up. 1073 flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv was... Essentially hijacked, the co-pilot attacked the captain inside the cockpit with an emergency crash axe and tried to seize control of the aircraft. During the struggle, the 737 plunged roughly 17,000 feet before the captain managed to open the cockpit door. Passengers and cabin crew basically came in and were able to, you know, get the essentially co-pilot who attacked the captain under control. There was a couple like deadhead slash like... other fly Dubai pilots in the plane that were able to land it safely in Saudi Arabia. There was a lot of go like back and forth, a ton of like conspiracy theories going on about this. It looks like the UAE is actually saying that this was a terrorist attack and they're trying to figure out if this guy acted alone or if he was had some ties to other extremist groups. And so that's happening. Rumors and conspiracy theories are swirling everywhere. Mark, you go first. And what are you thinking? Speaker 5 (1:33) You know, the people who are doing their rumors and conspiracy theories are out of their freaking gourd. But it's social media. I mean, that's where you sit on. So what are you going to do about that? I mean, you know, ultimately what happened here is we averted a major mass casualty event. It's it's it is based on the heroism of the pilot. uh uh who whose co-pilot literally attacked them you know the pilot and a lot of this has come out now in the in the debriefs um but the the co-pilot said he wanted to pray and so the pilots said sure not all that unusual uh and then uh all of a sudden the guy gets attacked by an axe uh and you know which an axe this this that actually exists in the cockpit i think jonathan was talking this before in the and in the green room um this is not something that was smuggled on it actually exists Speaker 5 (2:23) And, you know, in this incredible struggle that ensues, the pilot then managed to open the door. Passengers rush in, drag them both out, and then some pilots who are, I guess, reserve pilots in the back ended up landing the plane. But, you know, it's only by the grace of God that this was not a massive, awful terrorist incident. The co-pilot under interrogation now, or I guess I think he's been transferred actually to the UAE from Saudi, and the Israelis are going to be allowed. to participate, which I think is important, has said that his target was Israel. And if you could just imagine the terror inside that airplane, you know, plunged several thousand meters and that exceeded the max limit of the 737. There's pictures on social media of kind of the tail, the fin, the tail of the plane. It's amazing it didn't break up in flight. And so just really an extraordinary incident. I think that there's a couple of keys on this. One is that we talk a lot on the show about terrorism. You know, terrorism is not a problem until it is. This was almost a mass casualty event. It looks like it was a lone wolf, but we still don't know. Clearly, his background, everyone's kind of going through his background. It turns out he's an Omani and he was barred from flying there. Incredible. He got a job in the Emirates and then he passed the Israeli checks. And in Israel, the Ministry of Transportation is supposed to check out all pilots who end up landing in Israel. They obviously failed in this miserably. And so there was a pretty significant security and intelligence failure on everyone's part, the Emirates, but also in the Israelis. And the final piece is that this now turns into a political issue in Israel. Election's October 27th. Netanyahu is trying to embrace this notion of security, but it turns out that his government has failed pretty spectacularly. Again, in the notion of background checks and investigations. But as I said, as is everything, there's no really foreign policy in Israel. It's only domestic politics. So this has actually taken a turn. in terms of the domestic political scene there. And lastly, there was five Americans, four or five Americans on board as well. So just could have been just an awful incident. There's no tie yet to Iran, even though there's some hints of this. But it does look like it's a lone wolf. But I think they'll figure this out in the debriefs, the interrogation, and then kind of digging through, which everyone in social media is doing. I mean, it's incredible. You can find all of his extremist leanings on social media. It's incredible that nobody kind of picked this up. Speaker 2 (4:44) And also, this is a good example of bilateral intelligence relationships between states that aren't necessarily openly declared friends. Israel was able to interrogate the individual before he was sent back to the Emirates, presumably either in Saudi Arabia or the Emirates or Israel. So kind of an interesting series of decisions that had to be made between the leaders of those countries and with those liaison relationships that those countries have to have for security reasons. And it looks like after the fact, it's working well. The challenge is, like you said, Mark, before the fact, where was the knowledge of these indicators? Because there were indicators. If you see on his LinkedIn, he had two posts on his LinkedIn, period, both of which were extremist in nature that were available to the public to see. One of them was him complaining about how his mom has to find a woman for him to live with that's willing to wear a niqab and stop working after he gets married and how the West has ruined women and et cetera, et cetera. This was a publicly available video. Of course, it was taken down after the attack, but it was there. He also made a post right around the same time the attack was happening that was scheduled to be published after the attack. So, you know, if you're looking for intent, this is an indicator of that. And it was another, you know, obviously extremist post. And it's interesting because, like, from a legal perspective, the Emirates, the reason he's in the Emirates now is because Emirati law allows the Emirati legal system to follow you if you're in an aircraft. So he committed this crime in an aircraft. And so the Emirates continue to maintain custody or jurisdiction over his actions, even though it was in another country's airspace or soil. And that's why he's back in the Emirates now, which I thought was kind of interesting. Speaker 4 (6:21) Yeah, it's kind of, I mean, this is aviation's worst insider threat, right? I mean, I know there have been other cases. There was the 2015 German wings pilot who, that was a mental health issue. He crashed the plane. It was a plane from Barcelona to Germany. But this is kind of the ideological version of that, right? Speaker 4 (6:50) I mean, the whole system is built to keep threats out of the cockpit with reinforced doors, screening, you know, air marshals. And of course, you know, had this been an LL flight, that would have been, you know, four or five guys on that flight, armed guys on that flight. But none of that matters if... You've got the threats in the cockpit itself and the door is secure and it all, you know, much is being made quite rightly of the heroism, the passengers, blah, blah, blah. But the real, in my mind, the real hero was the pilot. That plane would have crashed. You know, he had already leveled the plane and he had fought off his attacker, even though he was badly wounded. And if he hadn't opened that door. that plane would have gone down. The plumber wouldn't have been in a position to pull back on their yoke and meet Netanyahu. By Speaker 5 (7:42) the way, the plumber who then, is that the guy who was watching Canadian videos on how to fly a plane? Speaker 4 (7:48) Apparently, yeah. It's Speaker 5 (7:49) unbelievable. Speaker 4 (7:50) Yeah. Speaker 5 (7:50) All of your time on Flight Simulator, all of your time gaming, D, will come into fruition one day. I Speaker 4 (7:58) know. Speaker 5 (7:58) Yeah. I'm getting ready for it. Speaker 4 (8:00) So, you know, I mean, hopefully airlines, you know, obviously fly Dubai, hire them without checking with Omani authorities. That's a worry, right? You know, as you guys mentioned, Omani Air had already moved to more flying duties. because of his web activity. But FlyDubai, who I've flown on, maybe not again, didn't do a good job of checking him out. So, you know, hopefully airlines across the region are going to be now sharing pilot vetting information across borders. I don't know if this is true, but, you know, the target was one of the normalization flights, right? I mean, that's... significant. The direct Gulf-Israel routes are one of the most visible results of the Abraham Accords. The El Al has stopped flying that route because of security concerns. And I believe Emirates has done so now too. So, I mean, even a failed attack has achieved part of what it was after, which is raising the cost and the fear around normal. normal travel between Israel and Dubai. And by the way, the prices of those flights were pretty crazy anyway. So, you know, there's clearly going to be more pressure on Gulf carriers to cut back on those routes even more. I think it's, you know, I think it's important, not just because, you know, I'm saying it, but I may want to fly that route. But resisting that pressure is important if, you know, the normalization project is to continue. Speaker 4 (9:40) And lastly, you know, it's not helpful to attribute this to Iran. I mean, it seems likely that what the Israelis are saying, this was a lone wolf attack and it was Islamist radicalization. You know, all the online material that he was dabbling in points towards an al-Qaeda style jihadism, not the IRGC. um Speaker 4 (10:11) And, you know, I think that's, I don't think this is going to be used as justification before strikes, but we've got to be obviously careful, especially as leaders of country, you know, leader of a country coming out and saying, based on what I'm hearing, it was an Iranian plot. But anyway, I think that, you know, cooler heads will prevail there. Speaker 5 (10:33) You know, it's interesting, Andy, of attribution. I mean, so that's maybe that's a good way to kind of. shift because, okay, this happens. Everyone wants to then take action. But in the case of if it's Islamic extremism or Al-Qaeda, there's no target to hit. And that's where I think, and what you just noted, the leak on the attribution right now comes from the Israeli side. And I think that's important, actually, because, you know, this is the Israeli security services telling someone in the press, in the Middle Eastern press, yeah, we think it's a lone wolf and it's not Iran. That's different than a political statement from one of the political leaders. So I agree with you. I hope cooler heads will prevail on this. Now, of course, if it was Iran, then you do have to take action. I mean, so but that's why the intelligence side of it is incredibly important. One note is I think Fly Dubai has suspended their flights to Israel now until they get this in order. Going back to the Israeli politics part of it, though, the Ministry of – it was interesting. In Israel, as I'm a geek out on Israeli national security press, the Ministry of Transportation has actually somehow taken responsibility several years ago for this vetting from Shin Bet and Mossad. And the individual who was responsible for this completely failed, obviously. And so, you know, there's going to be a very – there's already the blame game going on. But there's a huge... Speaker 5 (12:01) You know, after action that I think will be done here other than rather than October 7th, which that after action is never going to be done under this current Israeli government. But here I think there's there's a lot already that's come out that just shows kind of where the system totally broke down. Speaker 4 (12:17) Yeah, I mean, and just by pure luck and the courage of the few, things went well. You know, we talked about the off-duty pilots being on board, taking over, the guy having, you know, being a gamer or whatever and being on a flight simulator. Although I think that's probably a better story than it sounds. Yes. But, you know, Saudi air traffic control picking up. diverting to Dubuque where the passengers, there's some great video in the local media here of nurses, Saudi nurses, you know, all covered up treating Israeli passengers, which, you know, I mean, you just can't imagine, can you? And the regional cooperation between Israeli, Emirati and Saudi investigators now working together. So, you know, all that deserves to be said. It's positive things. We're accused of not having positive things on their shows, so I thought I'd throw that in. Nicely done, Andy. Thank you. Speaker 2 (13:22) Yeah, actually Netanyahu came out and said that he doesn't believe it to be Iran linked, which to your point, Mark, I think that's very important coming from Israel because they have every reason. There's every incentive for them to try to find a link to Iran. And the fact that they have come out publicly in multiple outlets with multiple people saying that, that's a big deal. I saw Trump said that there might be a link to Iran. So that's kind of interesting, the disparity between the U.S. perspective versus the closer to their home perspective of Israel saying that it's not. Iran, when at the same time we have other things in other parts of the world, like in the UK, where there are some perhaps links to Iran. So that definitely is an interesting difference, I think, to previous ways to describe attacks before we have an after action. Speaker 5 (14:03) There's some great memes. How do you say it? Memes, memes, memes. I don't know. I'm too old for this. Memes. Memes. Excellent. Memes. It's really, I mean, there's, you know, there's one in which people get on board and... As opposed to what obviously happens, there's a lot of anti-Semitism in the world. In this case, there's a flight attendant asking, who's an Israeli here? And everyone is a little worried. And they're like, well, you sit in the front row. Can you sit in business class? And they're like, but I have an economy class ticket. You've been upgraded. We want you up front. And it just, you know, there is a notion of a country in which, you know, everyone serves in the military. And there's such a kind of... Speaker 5 (14:41) focus on on you know citizen soldiers there that there might be more of a proclivity for someone to have the capabilities to act um if you're used to living in that kind of world unfortunately that's that's you know one would hope that that kind of thing is not necessary but you know we talk about terrorism so much here i mean you know i this it's a it's a whole separate subject not for today but it is a question of you know do you know we get complacent on the Islamic terrorism threat. If this is Islamic extremism, if it's Al Qaeda, well, wait a second. I thought Al Qaeda was defeated. And if they just took down an airliner with 200, if they were about to take down an airliner with 200 people, there's a different conversation to be had after that. Even if it's a lone wolf, which everyone here knows is the hardest type of terrorist activity for an intelligence service to combat because there's no cells to penetrate. to recruit you know intercept uh communications intercept there's no terrorist training camp if you get self-radicalized yourself you know that's it's very hard to uh uh to combat that so but but jonathan jonathan you brought up Iran and terrorism. Maybe we switch there because there's some events in the UK that are going on. No, no. Speaker 6 (15:51) I have one thing to ask about the Speaker 5 (15:53) fly Speaker 6 (15:53) Dubai Speaker 5 (15:53) incident. Like they, Speaker 6 (15:54) they, uh, he, he went to school in, uh, Melbourne, Australia. Yeah. And like, didn't the Australian authorities kind of ping him in terms of, I don't know what it, you know, they Speaker 5 (16:04) had Speaker 6 (16:05) them in terms of some reports are saying that they pinged them essentially before he went out and be, I guess became a full fledged pilot. Is there anything to that in terms of, Did they know something or Speaker 2 (16:17) maybe, Speaker 5 (16:17) you Speaker 2 (16:18) know, well, he also didn't pass Royal Air Morocco, the Moroccan airline flight school. He was not selected out of that flight school either. So he's been attempting to become a pilot, which if you remember before 9-11, that was another thing is like they were shopping around trying to find places to get flight training. So, you know, obviously speculating, but that would be an interesting thing to investigate about how far back was his intent. Speaker 5 (16:39) Yeah. Speaker 2 (16:40) He showed