The FlyDubai pilot has spoken out after being stabbed by a hijacker and preventing a “9/11-type disaster”.
Indian pilot Smit Machchhar described the attack during a video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Flydubai jet from Dubai to Israel plunged from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet in just a minute after one pilot allegedly stabbed his co-pilot, then tried to hijack the plane.
He said that he opened the cockpit door of the Israel-bound plane to let passengers in and halt its rapid descent.
Passengers and crew then managed to tie up and stop the alleged attacker, forcing the jet to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia and stopping it from crashing.
Capt Machchhar said: “I was lying on the floor injured but I told myself to go for one last push to open the door from inside.
“Others came in and also played a role [in controlling the situation].
“I was of course fighting for my own life but at the same time I knew I was not going to let others die.”
Indian pilot Smit Machchhar described the attack during a video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
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ANI
The Indian embassy in the UAE said yesterday that Capt Machchhar was “in good health and recovering well”.
Ambassador Deepak Mittal said he was “proud of Capt Smit for his bravery” and “very reassured” to meet him.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the Indian national for his “extraordinary bravery”.
“Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker – preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster,” he said.
Indian pilot Smit Machchhar said that he opened the cockpit door of the Israel-bound plane to let passengers in and halt its rapid descent
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EMBASSY OF INDIA IN ISRAELPrime Minister Netanyahu added: “He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals.”
The pilot said: “I am not looking at this wound like a wound because that would make my recovery even more difficult.
“I am looking at it as a journey which is slowly going on and will take time but I am confident that the recovery will be there and I will become fit and healthy again.”
While accompanying her daughter on a Boeing 737 travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv, Tali Manes, mother of six-year-old Nina Manes, overheard commotion from the cockpit and unwittingly stumbled upon the co-pilot’s alleged assault on the captain.
The pilot, understood to be an Omani national, attacked his co-pilot and attempted to take control of the aircraft with the intention of crashing it | XSpeaking to Israeli Channel 12, Tali Manes said: “There was blood all over the cockpit and very, very sharp fighting moves.
“I screamed, ‘He’s stabbing the pilot, he’s stabbing the pilot, come help!’ People looked at me and didn’t understand.”
Zvika Manes, Tali’s husband, added: “The shrieks of my daughters when the plane nose-dived [are still with me]. They said, ‘Dad we don’t want to die,’” he recalled. Their desperate pleas propelled him into the cockpit.
Assaf Rajoun, a fellow passenger who helped overpower the attacker, said: “In the moment you’re just trying to survive, you don’t think about what you did or what it means, you go and do what you can you do it in a way that you don’t even feel the fear. Only now I’m realising it.”
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