Investigation: Co-Pilot Acted Alone, Allegedly Planned Crash at Ben-Gurion Airport

CBS reported Sunday afternoon, citing sources familiar with the details of the investigation, that the terrorist co-pilot, Hammam al-Hamami, acted alone and on his own initiative.

Channel 12 reported Sunday evening that the terrorist told investigators he had planned to crash into Ben-Gurion Airport. He therefore began attacking and incapacitating the pilot while over Jordanian territory, to plan the landing and crash while preventing interception.

An Emirati source told media outlets in his country that, if convicted, the terrorist is expected to face the death penalty.

Investigators in the Emirates contacted several Arab security and intelligence agencies to gather additional information needed for the ongoing investigation. New information indicates that al-Hamami received an Australian student visa in 2014 and lived and studied there from 2015 to 2017.

Meanwhile, the Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera" reported that the Omani pilot-terrorist shut down both engines, intended to murder the captain with an ax, and crash the plane into one of Tel Aviv's skyscrapers.

According to preliminary internal reconstructions by Emirati authorities, the terrorist realized that his original plan had been thwarted and decided to crash the plane in the middle of the desert. He switched off the autopilot, took control of the plane, and pushed the control column as far forward as possible. The nose pitched sharply downward. In just over 30 seconds, the plane lost 16,000 feet of altitude, about 4,900 meters.

During the dive, the plane reached speeds of more than 970 kilometers per hour, pushing it beyond its limits. A large part of the tail rudder broke off. Before he was removed and restrained, the terrorist tried to destroy the instruments in the cockpit. He did not believe anyone would be able to control the Boeing aircraft.

As previously reported, the plane was stabilized by a passenger, Yaniv Hayon, who said he pulled the control column toward himself to keep it from losing altitude, thanks to watching the television series "Air Crash Investigation." At that point, two off-duty pilots entered the cockpit and returned the plane to normal flight. One of the off-duty pilots entered the code "7700" from the cockpit: a general emergency status in the transponder system of commercial aircraft, without specifying the nature of the problem. But amid the confusion, the code was "7500," which reports an attempted hijacking. Control centers received the signal and understood that something was wrong, and Saudi authorities directed the plane to a nearby airport.