Flydubai co-pilot who nearly crashed plane was barred from flying by Oman over extremism concerns

7NEWS Sam Mednick and Aamer Madhani

3 Oct 2026 13:50 AEST Summary

From the report

The Flydubai co-pilot who officials said nearly crashed a Tel Aviv-bound flight with 182 people aboard was barred from flying by his native Oman over concerns he had adopted extremist.

How outlets headlined it

Each outlet's own headline. ~~Struck through~~: the loaded words our version leaves out. Plainest first.

7NEWS Flydubai co-pilot who nearly crashed plane was barred from flying by Oman over extremism concerns plain
WAtoday Flydubai attack suspect was banned from flying by Oman over extremism concerns plain

Headline check

The one thing this headline claims is in the report.

Figures, names and quoted words in the headline, looked for in the report itself — not in the summary above. One claim in this headline could be checked, so this is a narrow pass and not a thorough one. How this is checked

This is a summary. The indicators are not. Every score on this page was measured over the full 980-word report, which is the only way the numbers mean anything.

How it is written

Niral Score 16.4 · mostly calm mundaneloaded

10 more readings adjectives, repeated words, sentiment, jingoistic and 2 more and 4 at zero

Highlighted in the text. Words that carry a fact and quoted words are not counted.

passengers8co-pilot7flight6attack4back4captain4cockpit4plane4according3anonymity3children3condition3countries3feet3flights3flying3israeli3official3security3shouting3spoke3travel3aircraft2attacker2backwards2barred2believe2concerns2crashed2crew2dentist2die2don’t2early2evidence2extremist2floor2fly2front2going2hired2landed2lapses2later2left2members2nearly2part2people2person2place2repatriation2reputation2safely2seated2see2sent2ties2video2want2and 2 more

Sentiment -0.5 hostilefavourable Jingoistic 5 reports to a readerwrites from a camp Sourcing 78 unattributednamed sources Mood 0.7 sorrowjoyful

4 read zero: political diction, generational, gender, religious

Political diction 0 left-codedright-coded Generational 0 harder on the oldharder on the young Gender 0 no gendered framingframing throughout Religious 0 not invokedovert

How the article is written, not whether it is correct. How each is measured.

Measured on 7NEWS’s report as filed, which is all we may publish of this one.

How this outlet filed it, and how we rewrote it

No other newsroom we read has filed on this event, so there is nothing to compare it with yet.

Also covered by WAtoday, Brisbane Times, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald. We hold only their summary of it, not the report, so there is nothing of theirs to measure here.

Outlet	Niral Score
7NEWSas they published this story	16.4

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The same event elsewhere

4 other outlets filed this story. The scoreboard above is what they did differently.

WAtoday Flydubai attack suspect was banned from flying by Oman over extremism concerns Niral 6 · calm political 0 Brisbane Times Flydubai attack suspect was banned from flying by Oman over extremism concerns Niral 6 · calm political 0 The Age Flydubai attack suspect was banned from flying by Oman over extremism concerns Niral 6 · calm political 0 The Sydney Morning Herald Flydubai attack suspect was banned from flying by Oman over extremism concerns Niral 6 · calm political 0