Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated to CBS News on Wednesday that the motive of the co-pilot accused of stabbing his fellow pilot on a passenger jet bound from Dubai to Tel Aviv was still unknown.
“I don’t think it was a hijacking,” Netanyahu told “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil.
“I think it looks like a suicide attempt simply because of what this hero Yaniv described when he went in,” Netanyahu speculated, referring to Yaniv Hayoun, one of the passengers on the FlyDubai flight who has been credited with entering the cockpit and helping to subdue the attacker.
“This guy was trying to jam the equipment between the two flight seats, the pilot seats,” Netanyahu said of the co-pilot, whose identity has not been revealed. “He wasn’t sitting in the pilot seat trying to stabilize the plane, he was trying to jam the equipment.”
Speaking Thursday to Fox News, Netanyahu said Israel knew the co-pilot had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination,” based on “personal information” gathered during ongoing questioning. He did not offer any further information on the alleged indoctrination, but added to Fox that the attacker was “suicidal,” and that after he was subdued by other crew members and passengers, he shouted: “Kill me, kill me!”
According to Israeli officials, on Wednesday morning local time, the FlyDubai jet was about two hours into its flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv when the co-pilot stabbed the captain.
Per data analyzed by CBS News partner network BBC News, the plane then plunged about 17,000 feet, climbed 5,000 feet, and then fell another 7,000 feet before stabilizing.
Israeli officials and passengers said the captain, an Indian national, was able to fight off his co-pilot and unlock the cockpit door. Witnesses recounted how a group of passengers and crew members then stormed the cockpit and subdued the co-pilot.
Two off-duty pilots then took control of the plane and made an emergency landing at an airport in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. There were 174 people on board, Israeli officials said. Most of the passengers later boarded a replacement FlyDubai plane and were flown to Ben Gurion International Airport, arriving Wednesday night.
An Omani official confirmed to CBS News that the attacker, whose name has not been released, was born in Oman and holds Omani citizenship, but the Omani government has not publicly confirmed his nationality.
Netanyahu told CBS News he was being interrogated in Saudi Arabia.
“He’ll be, I assume, moved very quickly to Dubai,” Netanyahu told CBS News, adding that Israeli authorities will “join the interrogation and find out what happened there exactly.”
A senior Israeli official told CBS News’ Dov Lieber on Thursday that United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan personally told Netanyahu on Wednesday that he expected Saudi authorities to transfer the pilot to the UAE for questioning.
Asked if he thought the incident could have stemmed from a mental health issue and not an act of terrorism, Netanyahu said, “it could be, I don’t know, we’ll find out soon.”
“We’ve had signs that Iran, and particularly through its proxies, was intending to heighten terrorist attacks against Israel and Israeli nationals abroad,” Netanyahu added. “But I think it’s too early to say whether there was Iranian collusion here. I think we’ll find out, won’t take a long time.”
No definitive motive for the stabbing has been determined by authorities. An Israeli security official previously told CBS News that investigators were looking into the possibility that the incident could have been an attempted Sept. 11-style terror attack.
“At this early stage, the underlying reasons and motives behind this event are unknown and remain subject to a formal investigation,” FlyDubai said in its own statement. It urged “all parties to refrain from premature speculation while authorities gather the facts.”
