Alleged flydubai attacker left Australia without finishing engineering course, university says

An Australian university has confirmed a flydubai co-pilot who allegedly tried to hijack an Israel-bound flight studied at its Melbourne campus, but left before completing his qualification.

Disaster was narrowly averted on 30 September when passengers and crew intervened to stop the alleged attempt of the co-pilot, identified by media outlets as Hammam al-Hammami, to take control of a flight to Tel Aviv with 182 people onboard.

The United ⁠Arab Emirates’ prosecutor general said the co-pilot allegedly used a crash axe in the attempted “terrorist attack”, in which the pilot was stabbed mid-air. Numerous media outlets have named the co-pilot al-Hammami, an Omani national.

On Monday, the RMIT university in Melbourne said in a statement that it “is aware of media reporting of a former student alleged to be involved in the Flydubai flight incident”.

“The individual was enrolled at RMIT but did not successfully complete an engineering qualification,” the university

“As this is an ongoing investigation, the University is unable to provide further comment.”

Former RMIT engineering students contacted by Guardian Australia said they did not remember al-Hammami.

RMIT university’s confirmation came after the Australian federal police (AFP) on Sunday said agencies were investigating the man’s time in the country.

A source familiar with the case, but not authorised to speak publicly, has said the man was granted an Australian student visa in 2014, before arriving in the country to commence a university course the next year.

He left Australia in 2017, and his visa was cancelled in 2019 after authorities confirmed he was no longer enrolled in the course, the source said.

The AFP on Sunday said multiple agencies – including the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) – were probing the man’s connections to the country.

“The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team (VIC JCTT), comprising the AFP, Victoria Police and ASIO, can confirm it is investigating the man’s links to Australia,” an AFP spokesperson said.

“An update will be provided at an appropriate time.”

Court records and previous media reporting show that a number of Australians charged with terror offences or suspected of Islamic extremism studied at RMIT around the same time as al-Hammami, but there was no indication he knew any of these individuals.

A British university, Buckinghamshire New University, has confirmed a student named Hamam al-Hammami had “previously completed a distance-learning course in aviation management”. It added: “He did not undertake any pilot training at the university.”

A flydubai spokesperson on Saturday said the circumstances surrounding the incident were still ‌under investigation and the airline was not in a position to comment further.

The airline’s flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv were suspended after the attack. The Omani co-pilot and the flight’s Indian captain, Smit Machchhar, were taken to the UAE, as it leads the investigation. Officials have said a number of countries including Israel are participating.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the co-pilot had been barred from flying by Oman over concerns he had adopted extremist views. He was then moved to an administrative job at Oman Air, according to the official, before being hired by the UAE-based budget airline flydubai.