Investigators dated the start of his radicalization to 2017, when he was a student in Melbourne, Australia. There he encountered extremist publications and online content that glorified terrorist organizations and suicide attacks. Investigators said the probe also examined a mosque he attended that is associated with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Investigators said he met people there who were linked to a center run by a Lebanese man known as "Abu Hamza."
Al Shamsi said al-Hammami later consumed more extremist propaganda to prepare himself psychologically. His physical preparation included private boxing lessons. Before the attempt, he flew to Tel Aviv twice to learn the route and become familiar with Ben Gurion Airport.
Prosecutors also examined how Flydubai came to employ him. In their account, he flew for Oman Air from 2020 to 2024, spent a short stint with Royal Air Maroc in 2025 and joined Flydubai in January 2026. He met the airline's professional and security requirements. He held a valid pilot's license, provided a certificate of good conduct and passed the required screening. None of those checks exposed his extremist views or his plan to carry out an attack.
Earlier in the week, Britain's The Telegraph reported that al-Hammami trained at L3 Airline Academy in the United Kingdom between 2018 and 2019. The academy then ranked among Britain's largest flight schools. It had campuses in Southampton and Bournemouth and a simulator site close to Gatwick Airport, and it has since been absorbed into Acron Aviation.
The newspaper also reported that L3 had ties to Oman Air. The carrier had listed the academy as one of five internationally recognized schools whose graduates could be considered for its pilot recruitment program. The Telegraph said his Oman Air employment ended in February 2025, which differs from the 2020–2024 period in the prosecutors' account.
Israel's Channel 12 News had earlier reported that al-Hammami linked the attempt to the war in Gaza. "I did it as revenge for Gaza. I wanted to die as a shahid," he reportedly told investigators.
The attorney general's statement also described how al-Hammami attacked his captain with a crash axe on September 30.
