The FlyDubai hijacker’s plan was pretty much just as you might imagine
The terrorist copilot had been plotting his attack for a long time, and his plan was mega-destructive. Fortunately, it didn’t work. But it came close:
According to the officials, al-Hammami began his attempt to seize control of the aircraft only after it reached Jordanian airspace because he intended to continue toward Israel as though the flight were making a normal landing at Ben Gurion Airport, then crash the plane into the airport.
If he was unable to reach Ben Gurion, investigators believe al-Hammami planned to crash the aircraft into a U.S. military base in Jordan.
The investigation also found that the Omani pilot had planned to carry out the attack as early as July but postponed it because of a personal connection with one of the crew members aboard his flight at the time, deciding to “spare him” and wait for another opportunity.
Nice guy.
Note that the heroic passengers on the FlyDubai plane felt that some of the crew members were acting suspiciously, as though they might be in league with or at least sympathetic to the terrorist.
When a person is willing and even eager to martry him/herself, the sky’s the limit for the destruction possible. That is one of the main reasons Islam, with its emphasis on the rewards of martyrdom, is so potentially dangerous. Israel had gotten careless in letting others do the vetting:
“I searched and checked which company flies to Tel Aviv, and that’s why I chose flydubai,” he was quoted as saying. “I tried to get accepted by all the airlines. I planned the operation even before I was hired by the company.”
Earlier Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced a review of the security arrangements governing foreign civil aviation to Israel, following scrutiny of security gaps exposed by the incident.
It really was nothing short of a miracle that this plane and all its passengers were saved.
There’s an opportunity to close those gaps. And the problem isn’t limited to Israel or the Middle East. Jihadi pilots or and/or crew are possible anywhere, and with that ax in the cockpit – which I assume is standard equipment – the opportunity to do damage to a non-jihadi pilot is there.
Note that the heroic passengers on the FlyDubai plane felt that some of the crew members were acting suspiciously,…
Were they actually suspects?
I was watching the latest season of Reacher on Amazon last night. (Not an especially high quality drama, but OK.) Wouldn’t you know, they are tracking down someone equivalent to a suicide bomber (a suicide poison gas bomber) at a point in the show.
What was interesting was something like a 10-point checklist of things to look for that might give away the behavior of an actual suicide bomber. I’d never seen that sort of thing elucidated before. It sounded real, and not like Hollywood nonsense, though I suppose it could have been the latter.
And tomorrow’s October 7.
A day of great joy and satisfaction for multitudes who can express their pride and support of Hamas for murdering, mutilating, kidnapping and torturing their enemies while ALSO expressing their extreme hatred and virtuous rage towards those enemies for not only surviving that murderous attack but also daring to fight back.
Wow! A two-fer (three-fer?)…