A day after an attack in the air on a flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv put the lives of about 180 people in danger, mostly Israelis, Benjamin Netanyahu said that the co-pilot who allegedly stabbed the Indian captain Smit Machchhar had been radicalized by Islamists. This came after Israel called the attack an attempted terror attack and the UAE also looked into this possibility.

Speaking to Fox News, Netanyahu said that the co-pilot was being questioned and that officials would know within days if he had any ties to Iran."He was radicalized by Islamists, that much we know," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu also said that the attacker's past would be looked into, including whether he had any helpers and whether Iran was involved.That person, the co-pilot who hit the captain, is now being questioned, he said.

The official name of the co-pilot has not been made public. He was arrested after flydubai flight FZ1073, which was on its way from Dubai to Tel Aviv, had to make an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. He is said to be from Oman.

When asked if there was a link to Iran, Netanyahu said that Israel would try to find out if the co-pilot had done what they did on their own or with help from others.We'll find out who this attacker really is, if he had helpers, and if Iran was behind it all. He said, "I think we'll find out soon."

An accused co-pilot attacker is called a "religious extremist" by a coworker.
Channel 16 news in Israel says that a fellow flydubai pilot called the accused attacker a "religious extremist."

The pilot allegedly said that the co-pilot had joined flydubai about eight months before, prayed a lot during the day, and wouldn't shake hands with women. These claims are attributed to the other pilot and have not been proven by a third party to be the cause of the accident.

Flydubai has said that they don't know what caused the incident and have asked people not to make assumptions until the study is over. The Times of Israel said that the airline stopped all flights to and from Israel while the investigation was going on.