The captain who subdued a co-pilot wielding a knife aboard a flight bound for Israel said he held on through the attack because he was thinking of his passengers even as his own life was in danger.
Smit Machhar, the captain of the Flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, spoke by video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 2nd, the Associated Press reported. The attack took place on Sept. 30.
Machhar, an Indian national, told Modi that he had collapsed on the floor with multiple wounds. He said he fought for his life, realizing that passengers could die if he failed to get back up.
Machhar was seriously wounded by a knife wielded by the co-pilot, an Omani national. Despite his injuries, he released the lock on the cockpit door so that three Israeli passengers and a crew member could enter and overpower the co-pilot. After receiving emergency treatment in Saudi Arabia, where the plane made an emergency landing, he was transferred the previous day to a hospital in Abu Dhabi, the UAE, where he is recovering.
The co-pilot had previously been barred from flying by Omani authorities over concerns about radicalization. The Wall Street Journal, citing sources, reported that Flydubai hired him despite that record. He was assigned to the UAE-Israel route, where security sensitivities run high because of regional tensions and terrorism threats.
It is not confirmed whether Omani authorities shared their concerns about the co-pilot's radicalization with other countries or airlines. Which radical ideology he had embraced also remains unclear.
The case is being investigated by the UAE government, which is leading the probe as the state of registry of the aircraft under international aviation law. Asked about the co-pilot's flight ban in Oman, a UAE government spokesperson declined to comment, saying the government would refrain from prejudging or influencing the outcome of the investigation.
Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, praised the captain in a post on X, formerly Twitter, for preventing the plane from crashing. He also described the incident as a dangerous act of terrorism.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also called the incident an act of terrorism. He said the attacker had undergone a process of Islamic radicalization and had deliberately tried to crash the aircraft with passengers aboard.
Flydubai has temporarily suspended all flights to Israel while the investigation continues, stranding hundreds of passengers traveling between the two countries. About 180 people were aboard the aircraft, many of them Israelis. Israel began operating special repatriation flights on the 2nd for its stranded citizens.
Aviation security experts called the incident a serious security failure, noting that the knife passed through screening and that a dangerous individual was not screened out during background vetting.
Jon Alterman, who covers global security and geopolitics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the United States, told the AP that the UAE wants to be seen as a very safe place rather than one with serious vulnerabilities, and predicted that it would devote considerable effort to protecting that reputation.
