The captain of the Flydubai jet targeted in Wednesday’s attempted hijacking said his co-pilot asked to pray just minutes before striking him from behind with a cockpit crash axe, as new evidence revealed the suspect’s apparent affinity for al-Qaeda and pro-al-Qaeda propaganda calling for further attacks on aircraft carrying Americans and Israelis.
\n\nCaptain Smit Machchhar, who was badly wounded during the attack aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, gave his most detailed account yet of the ordeal Saturday in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
\n\n“It was a normal flight,” Machchhar said, recalling that his co-pilot, 29-year-old Omani national Hamam al-Hammami, told him that he wanted to pray.
\n\nMachchhar said the request did not initially strike him as unusual and that he turned forward out of respect.
\n\n“Suddenly, after four or five minutes, there was a big blow to the back of my head,” he said.
\n\n“My first thought was that there was catastrophic damage to the aircraft,” Machchhar continued. “But after that, the blows kept coming, one after the other. That’s when I realized it’s not the aircraft, it’s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me.”
\n\nThe United Arab Emirates’ attorney…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/
