// BBC WORLD NEWS — MONDO
Flydubai attacker began a 'drift towards extremism and terrorism' in Australia, UAE says
The Flydubai flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia after passengers managed to take back the aircraft's controls
The Omani co-pilot who allegedly attempted to hijack a Flydubai plane started a "drift towards extremism and terrorism" while studying in Australia, United Arab Emirates officials say.
UAE Attorney-General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi also alleged the pilot - widely named as Hamam al-Hammami - was last week trying to crash the plane into Tel Aviv's airport in a "suicide attack".
He wounded the captain in the cockpit with the emergency crash axe before being overpowered by passengers. Another crew on the Dubai-Tel Aviv flight was able to land the aircraft in Saudi Arabia.
Melbourne university RMIT earlier confirmed the pilot had studied there but left before completing his engineering qualification.
What began as a routine flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv turned into a fight for survival when one pilot allegedly stabs another inside the cockpit.
According to Shamsi, interrogations of the 29-year-old pilot revealed he had been inspired by al-Qaeda's 11 September attacks in the US in 2001.
"The findings indicated that signs of his drift towards extremism and terrorism first emerged in 2017, while he was studying in Australia," the attorney-general was quoted as saying by the UAE's state news agency Wam on Friday.
"During that period, he was influenced by takfiri [radical] ideology through reading extremist literature and following online content glorifying terrorist organisations and suicide attacks."
The Wam report also said the pilot had told investigators "he had prepared himself both psychologically and physically to carry out the plot by intensifying his exposure to material promoting terrorism and training in boxing under a private coach".