Captain Smit Machchhar, recovering in a UAE hospital, told Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday that he opened the cockpit door of a plunging flydubai jet with what he called his last push, after an alleged attack by his co-pilot, because he could not let roughly 170 passengers die.
The video call, released by the Prime Minister’s Office, followed Wednesday’s emergency on flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv. According to passenger accounts and statements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Omani co-pilot stabbed Machchhar—wounding him in the head and hands—and appeared to be trying to disable the controls as the Boeing 737 dropped sharply, by some estimates around 14,000 to 17,000 feet in under a minute. Cockpit doors are normally locked. Netanyahu’s office said the bloodied captain used the last of his energy to release the door. Israeli passengers and crew then entered.
Among them was plumber Yaniv Hayun. He told Netanyahu he found the attacker between the seats with no pilots in them, put him in a hold, and pulled him out. With the aircraft still tilting hard, Hayun jumped back in, grabbed the controls, and pulled them back. He said he knew to do so because he watches the air-crash documentary series Mayday. The plane began to level. The injured captain then indicated he was taking over; two off-duty flydubai pilots who were passengers later landed the jet safely at Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. A dentist aboard, Dr. Shota Musayev, treated Machchhar’s bleeding. Passengers said the attacker was restrained for nearly an hour, including with corded headphones. Netanyahu and Modi have both described the episode as the prevention of a catastrophe on the scale of 9/11. The co-pilot’s motive remains under investigation by Saudi authorities.
Speaking from his hospital bed, the 39-year-old captain—who has flown for more than 17 years and has been a captain for about 11—became emotional and called Modi his “biggest idol.” He said he had fallen, sensed the aircraft descending even with his eyes closed, and told himself this was the final push: the door was right there. Blows were still landing as he opened it. “Once I did, everyone else came in. Everyone played an equal role,” he said. He added that he was fighting for his own life and realized that if he did not get up, about 170 people would die. In those moments, as in other difficulties, he recited the Hanuman Chalisa.
Modi told him the country was praying for his recovery, including through Maha Mrityunjay recitations, and that his courage and composure had saved many lives. “Indians are not those who take lives, but those who are willing to risk their lives to save others,” Modi said. The two also spoke in Gujarati; Modi asked about Machchhar’s children and said he had spoken with the pilot’s father, mother Geeta Ben, and wife, noting that Geeta Ben had raised him on the values of the Bhagavad Gita. Machchhar apologized for crying. Modi replied that if he could not be emotional with him, then with whom.
SOURCES:
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