Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says investigations suggest the man who stabbed his fellow pilot and tried to take over a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination”.
The Flydubai plane plunged more than 17,000ft (5,200m) two hours into its journey on Wednesday, before passengers and crew overpowered the attacker and retook control to land safely.
Netanyahu told Fox News that it was looking “very likely” that the attacker, who he said was an Omani national, “was going to down the plane”.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) state news agency reports investigations have begun there to determine “whether the incident was linked to any terrorist activity or purpose”.
The co-pilot is currently being questioned in Saudi Arabia, where the plane made an emergency landing. However, UAE officials say they have jurisdiction over the incident because the aircraft on which the attack took place is registered there and flies under its flag.
Netanyahu told Fox that once the attacker had been subdued and tied up by passengers and crew, he was “calling out to the aircrew ‘kill me, kill me’, so it’s clear he was suicidal – that’s not a question”.
”And with all the passengers in there, and if you couple that with what I just told you about the Islamist tendencies, that radicalisation that were found in his background, I think… that’ll give us a pretty good clue.”
However, he stressed that he did not want to draw any firm conclusions as to motive yet.
Pilots from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel were usually not allowed to fly there, Netanyahu said when asked about how the suspected Omani pilot came to be on the plane.
He added: “Obviously there was a loophole here and we’re taking care of that among other things… with the full co-operation, I have to say, of the Emirati government, so we’re both interested in making sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Oman has not formally established official ties with Israel, unlike the UAE.
The prime minister was also asked earlier on the same network whether there was an indication if Iran was involved, he replied: “It’s too early to say”.