Captain Smit Machchhar: The ‘jovial’ pilot and father who thwarted the Flydubai attacker

Israel Foreign Ministry/Reuters

The Indian pilot who fought off a savage attack by his copilot and helped prevent an apparent hijack of a Flydubai plane heading to Israel with more than 170 people on board is being hailed as a hero.

Captain Smit Machchhar was stabbed while trying to fend off the attacker, leaving him badly wounded. During the struggle the cockpit door was opened, allowing other passengers to rush in, subdue his assailant, and take control of the plane that was enroute to Tel Aviv.

Machchhar’s actions have received widespread praise from political leaders, passengers who were onboard, and those who know him.

“Smit Machchhar is a talented, soft spoken, kind-hearted and a person with good nature,” said Jinat Shah, who used to live next door to him in Mumbai before the pilot moved to Dubai. “He is an incredible person, and I hope for his fast recovery,” Shah told Indian news agency ANI.

Passengers who were on flight FZ1073 described those chaotic moments , during which the plane plummeted 17,400 feet in less than 120 seconds. One told CNN: “I was just sure I was going to die.”

But after the attacker was restrained, the flight was diverted to Saudi Arabia, where it was safely landed by two standby pilots who happened to be flying as passengers

Machchhar’s heroics came at a huge cost.

Images show showed a gruesome scene onboard following the attack, with blood splashed across the cockpit and a seriously wounded pilot lying on the floor, his pained face partially covered with a mask.

Machchhar had suffered “massive blood loss” and was “severely wounded,” dentist Shota Musaev, a passenger on the flight who helped treat him, told CNN.

“I think that if we had waited even a few more moments, we would have lost him; his blood pressure had plummeted, he suddenly lost consciousness, and there was blood everywhere,” he said.

His bravery “managed to prevent a 9/11 disaster,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CNN.

Machchhar is now receiving medical care at a hospital in Saudi Arabia, according to the Indian embassy in Riyadh, and is in stable condition.

Erik Marmor/Getty Images

Born into a family in the textile business, becoming a pilot wasn’t Machchhar’s “childhood dream,” he told the Bona-Fide Banter podcast in 2025.

Initially, he’d enrolled in a textile engineering course after school.

“I finished the entire course, I still was young so wanted to (do) a little more studies,” he said.

Once he decided on flying, training took him to New Zealand, where he arrived aged around 19, in the southern city of Dunedin.

“He was always sort of a jovial young man and he tried hard,” his instructor at the time Philip Kean told CNN.

In a group photograph Kean shared from those days, Machchhar is easy to pick out. “He definitely got a smile of his own… he’s sort of a happy, happy chap,” said Kean, CEO of Mainland Air in Dunedin.

Before joining Flydubai, Machchhar spent 11 years with Indian carrier SpiceJet, rising to the position of Senior Commander, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Before Wednesday’s incident, one of the most unusual situations he had faced during his over 15 years of flying was the birth of a baby on board.

A woman on the plane, who was not at term, had started experiencing labor pains, Machchhar told the Bona-Fide Banter podcast. “Within 7-10 minutes, she was like, ‘captain this is now advancing toward a delivery.’”

Machchhar said he and the first officer started to check for the nearest airfields and conditions to make a safe landing. “Both the mother baby were fine, he added.

Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

‘I was sure I was going to die’: Inside the Flydubai flight where passengers fought off a terrifying attack

Watching the news of Machchhar’s heroic actions on the Flydubai flight from New Zealand, his former instructor Kean was full of praise for the young man he had once taught.

“It was an amazing feat,” he told CNN.

“There could have been a whole airplane load of people wiped out in a matter of seconds, and luckily they got the door open… luckily he could hang on and save the day. Another half a minute would have been all over.”

“I’m very proud,” he said. “I’m very proud that he handled that situation… It’s great the way it turned out.”

Machchhar has become a national hero for two nations –– Israel, where most of the passengers hailed from, and his own home country, India.

“The pilot from Mumbai who proved to be a hero,” wrote the Times of India.

“Viewers, if 166 Israelis go home tonight without a scratch, it is all down to the bravery of one single Indian, Captain Smit Machchhar,” a CNN News-18 anchor said during his primetime program.

Speaking on the podcast last year how it feels to be a pilot, Machchhar’s answer was simple: “Blessed.”

Additional reporting by Sandi Sidhu.

以色列外交部/路透社

一名印度飞行员击退了副驾驶的猛烈攻击，帮助阻止了一起载有 170 多人的迪拜航空飞往以色列的飞机疑似被劫持的事件，他被誉为英雄。

机长斯密特·马赫哈尔在试图击退袭击者时被刺伤，身负重伤。搏斗中，驾驶舱门被打开，其他乘客冲入机舱，制服了袭击者，并控制了这架飞往特拉维夫的飞机。

马赫查尔的行为受到了政治领导人、机上乘客以及认识他的人的广泛赞扬。

“斯米特·马赫查尔是一位才华横溢、温文尔雅、心地善良、性情温和的人，”吉纳特·沙阿说道。在马赫查尔搬到迪拜之前，她曾是他在孟买的邻居。“他是一位了不起的人，我祝愿他早日康复，”沙阿告诉印度亚洲新闻社（ANI）。

乘坐FZ1073航班的乘客描述了那段混乱的时刻，飞机在不到120秒的时间内骤降了17400英尺。其中一位乘客告诉CNN：“我当时确信自己要死了。”

但袭击者被制服后，航班改道飞往沙特阿拉伯，由两名恰巧也是乘客的备用飞行员安全降落。

马查尔的英勇行为付出了巨大的代价。

图片显示袭击发生后机舱内一片惨状，鲜血溅满了驾驶舱，一名身负重伤的飞行员躺在地板上，他痛苦的脸被面罩部分遮住。

据 CNN 报道，同机乘客、牙医 Shota Musaev 曾帮助治疗马赫查尔，他表示马赫查尔“大量失血”且“伤势严重”。

“我想如果我们再等片刻，我们就会失去他；他的血压骤降，突然失去了意识，到处都是血，”他说。

以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡告诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN），他的勇敢“成功阻止了9·11灾难的发生”。

据印度驻利雅得大使馆消息，马赫查尔目前正在沙特阿拉伯的一家医院接受治疗，病情稳定。

Erik Marmor/Getty Images

马赫查尔出生于一个纺织业家庭，成为一名飞行员并不是他的“儿时梦想”，他在 2025 年接受 Bona-Fide Banter 播客采访时说道。

最初，他放学后报读了纺织工程课程。

“我完成了整个课程，当时我还年轻，所以想再多学一些东西，”他说。

他决定从事飞行事业后，前往新西兰接受训练。大约 19 岁时，他抵达了新西兰南部城市达尼丁。

“他一直是个开朗活泼的年轻人，而且非常努力，”他当时的教练菲利普·基恩告诉 CNN。

在基恩分享的一张当年的合影中，马赫查尔很容易被认出来。“他笑容灿烂……他真是个乐天派，”基恩说道，他是达尼丁大陆航空公司的首席执行官。

根据马查尔的领英个人资料显示，在加入迪拜航空之前，他曾在印度香料航空工作了 11 年，并晋升为高级指挥官。

在周三的事件发生之前，在他超过 15 年的飞行生涯中，他遇到的最不寻常的情况之一是机上婴儿的出生。

马赫查尔在“Bona-Fide Banter”播客节目中透露，飞机上有一位尚未临产的女子开始出现分娩阵痛。“7到10分钟之内，她就说，‘机长，我现在要生了。’”

马赫查尔说，他和副驾驶开始寻找最近的机场，并了解降落条件，以便安全着陆。“母子平安，”他补充道。

Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

“我当时确信自己要死了”：迪拜航空航班内部，乘客们奋力击退了一场恐怖袭击

看到马赫查尔在飞越新西兰的迪拜航空航班上英勇救人的新闻，他以前的教练基恩对这位他曾经教过的年轻人赞不绝口。

“这是一项了不起的壮举，”他告诉 CNN。

“几秒钟之内，整架飞机的人都可能丧命，幸好他们打开了舱门……幸好他能坚持住，挽救了局面。再过半分钟，一切就都完了。”

“我非常自豪，”他说。“我为他处理这件事的方式感到非常自豪……结果非常好。”

马赫查尔已成为两个国家的民族英雄——以色列（大多数乘客来自该国）和他的祖国印度。

《印度时报》写道：“这位来自孟买的飞行员证明了自己是一位英雄。”

“观众朋友们，如果今晚有 166 名以色列人毫发无损地回家，这完全要归功于一位印度上尉史密特·马赫哈尔的英勇行为，”CNN News-18 的一位主播在他的黄金时段节目中说道。

去年在播客节目中谈到当飞行员的感受时，马赫查尔的回答很简单：“很幸运。”

桑迪·西杜亦有报道。