The Indian pilot of the recent flydubai flight which saw an attempted hijacking spoke to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a video call on Friday morning, sharing his account of the events.
According to the wounded pilot, Capt. Smit Machchhar, he had opened the cockpit door while on the floor of the plane and actively being attacked by his Omani copilot.
"I was lying on the floor injured but I told myself to go for one last push to open the door from inside," he said.
Machchhar added that, while he was fighting for his life, "I knew I was not going to let others die."
According to several Indian news outlets, Machchhar is a Gujarati Indian from Mumbai. According to his LinkedIn profile, he spent over a decade flying for Indian airline SpiceJet, where he also served as a training captain and mentor for new pilots, before moving to flydubai. His profile also notes that he accumulated about 9,750 flying hours on the 737-800 and the 737 MAX 8 and 9.
Israelis returned to Ben-Gurion Airport after attempted hijacking
One hundred and seventy-four Israeli passengers were returned to Ben-Gurion Airport Tuesday evening after multiple passengers helped restrain an Omani hijacker-pilot who attempted to crash the airplane earlier in the day.
The passengers were initially on a flydubai commercial passenger aircraft flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv, but then the pilot-hijacker, who was the deputy pilot for the flight, stabbed the lead pilot and tried to crash the aircraft before as many as four passengers wounded him and tied him up.
An additional flight crew on board were then able to handle landing the plane in Saudi Arabia, though the original pilot, Machchhar, was in critical condition, having been stabbed repeatedly by the Omani pilot.
Maya Zanger-Shamir, Amichai Stein, Yonah Jeremy Bob, James Genn, and Zvika Klein contributed to this report.