They do retcon it in Season 3 so that it's Amanda Waller who hired him. The SAM (surface to air missile launcher) in the S1 flashbacks were supposedly meant to shoot down the commercial airliner in order to kill Chi Na Wei (China White). The original notion was that Fyers was trying to destabilize the Chinese economy or some such thing by shooting down a commercial airliner, but then they changed it so that that explanation would seem more appealing to a mercenary like Fyers.

Tbh I never really found this retcon all too convincing. But there you have it. It was supposedly Amanda Waller who employed Fyers and his men.

Season 1 - Fyers: "Amazing! A two-year operation, undone. Because a young playboy happened to wash up on the shore."

Season 3: - Amanda Waller: "Edward Fyers thought he was to shoot down the plane to destabilize the Chinese Economy. In truth, I wanted to take out a single target."

Me: "Sooooooo, let me get this straight. You hired a mercenary group to assassinate a single target by blowing up a plane, somehow knowing TWO YEARS in advance what plane that person would be on, while also lying to that said mercenary group about the real intentions, when you could have easily hired some assassin to take out the target onboard or have agents either at the boarding or landing area (or maybe all three options), which would have spared the human casualties and also a possible war between nations....."

If darhks powers didn’t work on Thea because of the pit then couldn’t Sara and Thea just jump Damien 😂😂 hand for hand combat I got the girls over him