Captain Smit Machchhar, a flydubai pilot who saved 174 passengers from plunging to their deaths, has revealed in an interview the thoughts that had passed through his mind when his co-pilot slammed a cockpit axe on the back of his head in an attempt to crash the plane into a building in Tel Aviv.
Despite his injuries, he had opened the cockpit door, thus allowing Israeli passengers to overpower Hammam Al-Hammami, the Omani co-pilot, from taking over the plane and proceeding with his sinister plot. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump hailed him as a hero. They had worked alongside Hammam al-Hammami.
Because his co-pilot said he would offer prayers inside the cockpit, the Indian pilot said he wasn’t looking back.
He said that the Omani co-pilot sneaked in from behind and hit him. The pilot said he didn’t know what had hit him. “So, like I said, when I was just checking my computer for the timing and everything, suddenly there was a, a very hard hit at the back of my head over here, and it was quite hard and felt that it was something which was very strong, like the, the hit which came was from something very strong and hard. I didn’t know at that point what had hit me,” he said, adding, “I was in and out of consciousness frequently. Last week, two more flydubai pilots were arrested in Dubai on suspicion of planning a terror attack — both were said to have flown to Israel in the past.
