On July 10, 2019, the then Prince Charles opened a £75million state-of-the-art pilot training centre a couple of miles south of Gatwick.
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Charles → open → Gatwick
After testing out a cutting-edge flight simulator, the King appeared on an impromptu stage alongside former aviation minister Baroness Vere to unveil a plaque, joking during the ceremony that flying in his heyday was 'by the seat of your pants and by dead reckoning'.
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flying → test → reckoning
The six flight simulators at Acron Aviation, one of the country's largest flying schools, have since been crucial to training the next generation of commercial pilots globally.
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simulators → train → pilots
Today, two are proudly displayed at the entrance to the international company's imposing UK headquarters, close to the West Sussex town of Crawley.
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two → display → Crawley
Online blurbs for the flight training school say that pathways to becoming a pilot can take you from 'little or no flying experience to a fully qualified airline pilot' in around 70 weeks, and you can secure a place on one of its courses with a deposit of as little as £3,000 (although the overall cost is a hefty £94,500).
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cost → say → 3,000
The 'London Training Centre' at Gatwick advertises 'student-style accommodation', plush restaurants and break-out rooms and trades on its proximity to the capital, where aspiring pilots, presumably from overseas, are told they can visit 'iconic landmarks such as Big Ben, [the] Tower of London and Buckingham Palace'.
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they → advertise → London
What Acron employees are today less keen to discuss, however, is the fate of one of its former trainees from abroad.
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are → discuss → trainees
For just a year or so before Charles attended the grand opening of the London Training Centre (then owned by L3Harris Commercial Aviation, before being sold to Acron Aviation last year), it is understood Hamam al-Hammami had recently become one of the pilot academy's recruits.
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Hammami → attend → recruits
Hamam al-Hammami, the co-pilot suspected of attempting to hijack a flight from Dubai to Israel
Then aged in his early twenties, al-Hammami – who had spent his teenage years living in Syria and has an Omani father and Syrian mother – successfully applied for a spot in the L3Harris Airline Academy which eventually set him on a path to flying passengers on commercial airlines around the world.
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which → suspect → world
Until last week that is, because it was al-Hammami, a co-pilot on a budget airline flight from Dubai to Israel, who is suspected of attempting to hijack the aircraft and crash it into Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport or a tower block in the city in an attack 'akin to 9/11'.
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who → suspect → 9/11
It is claimed Al-Hammami used a crash axe kept in the cockpit to attack pilot Smit Machchhar two-and-a-half hours into the journey.
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Hammami → claim → journey
His attempt to take sole control of the aircraft to commit what was described by the Israeli authorities as an 'attempted jihadist terror attack' came after he had undergone 'Islamist radical indoctrination'.
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he → take → indoctrination
Nothing short of miraculously, a bloody Mr Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door and call for help, at which point heroic passengers overwhelmed the attacker – of which more later.
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passengers → manage → which
The plane, which fell 17,000ft in around 30 seconds, was pulled out of its plunge by a sewage-truck driver who told the Daily Mail he used knowledge gleaned from watching aviation documentaries to pull off his life-saving move.
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he → fall → move
It was then landed in Saudi Arabia by two off-duty pilots who happened to be on board and al-Hammami was taken into custody.
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Hammami → land → custody
Interrogated in the UAE over the past few days, he has given a 'detailed confession' to prosecutors, outlining his motives and allegedly explaining that he wanted to carry out an atrocity 'as revenge for Gaza' and wished to 'die a martyr'.
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he → interrogate → martyr
The UAE attorney general Hamad Saif al Shamsi said that al-Hammami had been 'intensifying his exposure to material promoting terrorism and training in boxing under a private coach' in the lead-up to the hijacking.
And it has since emerged that now-deleted social media posts indicated he was an angry young man, who espoused conservative Islam, saw women as 'rotten meat' and fomented hate.
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who → say → hate
All of this begs serious questions.
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All → beg → questions
Was this seemingly bright and aspirational twentysomething – who not only studied in Britain (including a distance learning course at a Buckinghamshire University) but also Australia and New Zealand – a jihadi hiding in plain sight who should have been stopped sooner?
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who → study → sight
Worryingly, he would later go on to describe his five years spent studying in the West as the 'golden years' of his religious commitment.
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he → go → commitment
In fact, when explaining how he prepared for the attempted hijacking, al-Hammami revealed he had watched radical terror videos and read extremist literature while studying engineering at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2017.
He also made the disturbing confession that, while in Melbourne, he became involved with an Islamist preacher called Samir Mohtadi, who has referred to Zionists as 'bloodsuckers'.
Was al-Hammami spurred on to take radical action by a toxic combination of radical Islam and the so-called 'manosphere'?
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Hammami → explain → Islam
The latter refers to a relatively recent online phenomenon dominated by the likes of Andrew Tate, the so-called 'king of toxic masculinity', who is currently facing charges of rape and sex trafficking in Britain.
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who → refer → Britain
Back at Acron's HQ, some eight years after it is understood al-Hammami began his studies in Britain, it is clear the aspiring pilot would have had access to all the conventional attractions of suburbia.
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pilot → understand → suburbia
The then Prince Charles opened the £75million pilot training centre near Gatwick in 2019
Opposite the office is a retail complex housing branches of Sainsbury's and Greggs and there are a McDonald's and Starbucks nearby.
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complex → open → Sainsbury
Local workers flit about drinking coffees and dog walkers meander the streets in the nearby Three Bridges neighbourhood.
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walkers → flit → neighbourhood
When al-Hammami began training at the L3Harris Airline Academy, as it was then known, in around 2018, there were also bases at Bedfordshire's Cranfield Airport, Bournemouth and Southampton.
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it → begin → Airport
While there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Acron, the company declined to say where al-Hammami was based.
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Hammami → be → Acron
Approached by the Daily Mail this week, one guard at its impressive premises said: 'I'm not saying no one remembers him, I'm just saying there is no one here that can help you.'
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that → approach → you
Asked about the due diligence it performed on al-Hammami, a spokesman for the company said: 'Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this incident.
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thoughts → ask → incident
As this is an ongoing investigation, we are unable to provide further comment.
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we → provide → comment
'
But his commitment to pursuing a career in aviation has since been linked to his desire to carry out a 9/11-style attack, the UAE attorney general revealed.
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general → pursue → attack
To piece together what led this seemingly aspirational young man to allegedly attempt to pull off such an atrocity, the first place to look in our digital age is social media.
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place → piece → age
While his account on Twitter (now X) under the name @pilothamam has been deleted, many posts remain archived on the internet.
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posts → delete → internet
An Omani national, al-Hammami spent time in the UAE as a child before moving to Syria in 2011, the year the nation was engulfed by the Arab Spring.
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nation → spend → Spring
He spent four years in the country as it was beset by civil war and later wrote on X that he was 'raised on religion, morals and virtue'.
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he → spend → religion
By 2015, al-Hammami was in Australia on a student visa, where he is said to have studied engineering at RMIT University in Melbourne for two years – but failed to complete his studies and left without a degree.
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he → say → degree
Captain Smit Machchhar piloted the flight and was attacked during the attempted hijacking
Reports suggest that, during this time, al-Hammami visited radical mosques and frequented extremist websites and the Australian authorities are currently conducting a multi-agency probe into his time in the country.
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authorities → pilot → country
It was at this point that he seemingly turned his attentions to completing professional pilot training.
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he → turn → training
We now know that, between November of that year and May 2019, al-Hammami obtained a six-month student visa to undertake flight training with a 'UK-based company no longer operating in New Zealand.'
We understand this to be Britain's L3Harris Airline Academy, which was working with a flying school in the city of Hamilton at the time, and police in New Zealand are also conducting enquiries into the time he spent there.
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he → know → time
By 2020, al-Hammami is understood to have returned to the Omani capital of Muscat, where he embarked on a distance learning course in aviation run by Buckinghamshire New University in High Wycombe.
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he → understand → Wycombe
…and 44 more, not listed.
The Aporia
