The FlyDubai co-pilot whose alleged violent attempt to crash a flight to Israel last week and kill everyone on board has a history of writing and sharing misogynistic comments on social media using so-called manosphere rhetoric, CBS News has learned. Many posts written and shared by Hamam al Hamami on an X account that has since been deleted used derogatory language about women embraced by misogynistic online influencers. Some of his posts included violent rhetoric. In one, he threatened to “stomp on your head, wipe the floor off you, make you an example to others, and then set you free.” It is not clear whether he was talking about a particular person or referring to women in general. Multiple sources familiar with the investigation into the alleged hijacking attempt told CBS News last week that al Hamami is an Omani national and was the co-pilot who attacked the plane’s captain with an emergency hatchet in the cockpit as it approached Israel on September 27. The passengers and crew managed to subdue it, by their own accounts, and an off-duty flight crew on the plane made a safe emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. Arabia. An Israeli security official told CBS News that authorities were investigating the possibility that the incident could have been an attempted 9/11-style terrorist attack. President Trump suggested a couple of days after the incident that the co-pilot might have ties to Iran, “based on what I’m hearing.” Passengers board a FlyDubai flight bound for Dubai before taking off from Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv on September 30, 2026. Jack GUEZ/AFP/Getty His posts on words, they “creep” before them. you crawl or ‘lick their feet’, you can forget about being with them; “You chose the cheap and easy route to approaching the opposite sex instead of elevating your own value as a man,” he said in a post, an archived version of which was found online by CBS News. The posts were written in Arabic. The Financial Times reported Wednesday that it discovered some 3,000 misogynistic messages posted or shared by al Hamami as part of an investigation, including him calling women “rotten meat.” According to the Financial Times, he praised flying as “the safest form of public transportation.” CBS News did not. has independently reviewed all the posts cited by the FT. Al Hamami’s posts mixed the rhetoric of extremist interpretations of Islam with that of the manosphere movement. The only woman he spoke positively about was his mother, whom he credited with raising him and his siblings “about religion, morality and virtue.” licking women’s feet in hopes of gaining their approval and getting closer to them. Typically, only a low-value man resorts to this behavior, resorting to foot licking as the easiest way to ingratiate himself with women. Does this mean I have to lick women’s feet? The only woman whose feet I would kiss is my mother. As for the ‘simple’ he has no dignity; “He licks the feet of any woman, worthy or unworthy, just in the hope of getting close to one of them.” He said in January 2022 that he hoped to get married and move out of his parents’ home as he approached age 25, but would only consider a woman who met very specific criteria. He turned to a Muslim dating website in hopes of finding a woman between 18 and 23, according to the Financial Times, and said he was looking for a “religious Saudi of tribal origin.” that she was willing to cover her face, not look for work outside the home and live abroad. His failed search led him to conclude, according to the co-pilot acted as a lone wolf in the alleged kidnapping attempt late last month, people familiar with the matter told CBS News. He is in the United Arab Emirates, where he is being questioned by Israeli and UAE authorities. Speaking to Fox News last week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel knew the co-pilot was “suffering from radical Islamist indoctrination,” based on “personal information” gathered during the interrogation. indoctrination, but added to Fox that the attacker was “suicidal” and that after being subdued by other crew members and passengers he shouted, “Kill me, kill me!” Al Hamami briefly worked for Oman Air, where he began training as a new pilot. Omani government surveillance discovered that he was visiting radical websites, sources said. Oman Air then transferred him to a desk job. being placed on administrative duties, and then left the airline around 2024. At one point, sources said, al Hamami posted a video of planes belonging to Israeli flag carrier El Al Airlines in Dubai with a photo at the end of the clip showing Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al Qaeda leader believed to have helped plan the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2022. Al Hamami was moved to Dubai and FlyDubai hired him without vetting him with the Oman government, sources told CBS News It’s unclear how, despite his history of embracing both Islamic radicalism and misogyny – and questions about whether he should have been allowed to fly to Israel as an Omani citizen – he managed to become a pilot ferrying dozens of people to and from Tel Aviv. Archie Clarke and Dov Lieber contributed to this report. More from CBS News Go deeper with The Free Press in:
