Dubai: Indian pilot Smith Machar, who was attacked on a Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, said that during the attack incident, he kept saying, “Do something. You shouldn’t die like this.”
In an interview with a news outlet while receiving treatment at a hospital in the United Arab Emirates, Indian pilot Smith Machar said, “That day’s flight began as usual. All procedures were in order. It was the first time I had worked with that co-pilot. About two hours after the plane took off, another captain, who was to operate the return flight, came into the cockpit to meet us.
At the same time, the co-pilot had gone to the restroom and returned. After speaking with him for a short while, the co-pilot said he wanted to pray and asked the pilot to step outside.
I told him to pray, and I sat in my seat, checking the landing time and fuel level on the computer. At that time, the co-pilot was standing behind me, praying.
Suddenly, I felt a very strong blow to the back of my head. It felt as if I had been struck by some powerful object. At first, I thought something had broken on the aircraft’s ceiling and fallen on me. But within a few seconds, I realized that I was being attacked. As a result of the attack, my field of vision had narrowed significantly.
I made efforts to defend myself from further attacks against me. I removed my seat belt, and while trying to stop the attack, I injured my hand. After that, I tried to bring another flight captain back into the cockpit area.
The co-pilot threatened that he would attack others as well and closed the door. Before that, while I was shouting my colleague’s name and trying to activate the switch to open the door, I fainted for the first time. I vaguely remember struggling somehow to try to open the door.
Within a short time, I felt the plane’s engines slowing down and the aircraft descending. After that, all I remember is that the door was open, and I was lying between the cockpit area and the aircraft’s galley area,” he said.
To the question of whether he thought they would not survive, he said, "At one point, I realized it. Then I kept telling myself, ‘Smith, do something. You must not die like this.’
Another captain who took control of the plane in an emergency deserves praise. I will remember that for the rest of my life. One thing I saw that day was the unshakable determination everyone had to survive. The crew and the passengers all had that determination.
In the days after the incident, the first moments of that attack would come back to me from time to time. At those moments, I felt as if my heartbeat had increased. To tell the truth, it was only when I realized the plane had landed that I understood I was out of danger.
A doctor treated me in the aircraft’s galley area. At the same time, the flight crew helped me stay conscious. In that situation, I focused all my attention only on not giving up on life,” he said.
When asked who he spoke to first after the incident, Machar said, with deep emotion, that he spoke to his two-year-old son.
This attack took place on September 30 aboard a Flydubai Boeing 737 flight traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv. At the time, there were more than 170 passengers on the plane. Omani co-pilot Hamam Al-Hammami attacked Machar with an emergency axe and tried to crash the aircraft into the ground. However, fortunately, the attempt ended in failure.