Hamam al-Hammami, the Flydubai co-pilot who attempted to crash an Israel-bound flight with 170 passengers last Wednesday, confessed to interrogators that he had planned the attack long before joining the airline.

Mr Al-Hammani, an Omani, stabbed captain Smit Machchar to crash Flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel, a move the UAE confirmed was a terrorist attack.

Citing an Israeli source familiar with investigations into the foiled terrorist attack, the Jerusalem Post on Monday reported what Mr Al-Hammani told investigators.

“I tried to get hired by all the airlines. I planned the operation even before I was accepted by the company,” Mr Al-Hammani confessed. “The dream was to crash into Ben-Gurion Airport.”

According to the report, Mr Al-Hammani said during interrogation that he researched which airlines operate routes to Tel Aviv and chose flydubai.

The report added, Mr Al-Hammani “flew a plane to Israel, intending to crash it within the country’s territory. However, due to his closeness to one of the crew members, he was overcome by a severe crisis of conscience and postponed the attack until late September.”

A check of Mr Al-Hammani’s LinkedIn page shows he was a former staff member of an Omani airline before joining Flydubai.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said preliminary investigations established that Mr Al-Hammani attempted to crash the plane and that about 170 passengers “underwent Islamist radical indoctrination.