Smit Machchaar narrates flydubai horror: ‘Co-pilot was praying, then attacked from behind’ - The Indian Express

Four days after a Flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv was thrown into an emergency, the captain who was attacked in the cockpit has begun to explain how it started. Smit Machchhar, an Indian pilot with 17 years of flying experience, has told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his co-pilot stood up, saying he wanted to pray, and that within minutes he was being hit from behind with an axe.

Flight FZ1073 left Dubai for Tel Aviv on 30 September with 174 people on board, most of them Israelis. Midway through the flight, the Boeing 737 Max dropped sharply after the co-pilot, Hamam al-Hammami, attacked the captain. Passengers and other crew took back control of the cockpit, and the plane landed in Tabuk, in north-west Saudi Arabia. Authorities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel are now investigating.

VIDEO | Jerusalem: Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu invites PM Modi and Indian pilot Smit Machchhar to light celebratory flame on Israel’s next independence day.

(Full video available on PTI Videos – https://t.co/d8jp61yd2p) https://t.co/nG6m5y1Stx

Machchhar gave his account in a video call with Netanyahu on Saturday, 3 October. He has been moved from Saudi Arabia to the UAE, where he is recovering from his injuries. In an earlier call with  Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 2 October, he spoke about his will to get up and save the passengers. The call with Netanyahu centred on the minutes before the attack, the prayer, and how he got the cockpit door open.

Machchhar said the plane was flying normally when al-Hammami stood up and said he wanted to pray. He told Netanyahu he did not think this was unusual. The co-pilot went behind him to pray, as he understood it.

Also read | Who is Hamam al-Hammami? Flydubai co-pilot, who stabbed India’s Smit Machchhar

After about four to five minutes, Machchhar felt a hard blow to the back of his head. The prayer, in the order of events he described, came just before the first strike.

Out of respect for the co-pilot’s prayer, Machchhar chose not to turn round. He kept his eyes forward, as he would with any colleague at prayer.

That meant he was not watching al-Hammami when the blow came. Machchhar did not say he knew at the time that the prayer was a cover for the attack. But the sequence he gave shows the co-pilot picked a moment when the captain was deliberately looking away.

The first blow was so sudden that he did not understand it. He thought the aircraft itself had been hit. A second blow followed, and only then did he know the attack was coming from the person behind him.

Machchhar said the blows blurred his vision, and he could feel the plane going sharply down. Hurt and unable to see well, he reached the door and opened it. Al-Hammami shut it again, and Machchhar fell to the floor.

“I realised I had one more chance,” he told Netanyahu. He said he thought he was going to die, so he put everything he had into one more push. When the door opened, he saw people waiting outside. They rushed in, overpowered al-Hammami and helped bring the cockpit back under control.

VIDEO | Jerusalem: Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls Indian FlyDubai pilot Smit Machchhar a “hero of the entire world”.

(Full video available on PTI Videos – https://t.co/d8jp61yd2p) https://t.co/LVJdyNq6ci

Netanyahu asked about “pulling the pin” on the door. Machchhar said there is no pin. Inside the cockpit the door opens with a twist of a knob, while people outside need a code. His colleagues were trying the code, but al-Hammami was stopping the door from opening. The hard part was reaching the knob. Once his hand was on it, a short, quick twist was enough.

Netanyahu has invited Machchhar and PM Modi to Israel for the country’s Independence Day, and called the pilot a “hero of Israel, India and the world”. He has also said the co-pilot went through “Islamist radical indoctrination”. The UAE is looking into the facts, the motive and whether the attack was planned or linked to terrorism.

Meanwhile, in his call with PM Modi, from his hospital bed, Machchhar said he was lying on the cockpit floor when he knew that if he did not get up, the passengers could die. He said he was fighting for his own life, but would not let others die. He also said he recited the Hanuman Chalisa during the attack and that it gave him courage.

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