DUBAI — FlyDubai Captain Smit Machchhar has given his first detailed public account of the cockpit battle that saved Flight FZ1073, telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu how he fought off his co-pilot’s attack with blurred vision and a final desperate push for the cockpit door.
In a video call released by Netanyahu’s office on Saturday, Machchhar said the flight had been operating normally when his co-pilot, Hamam al-Hammami, asked for time to pray — a routine practice, Machchhar said. Four to five minutes later, he felt a hard blow to the back of his head.
“My first thought was that there was catastrophic damage to the aircraft,” Machchhar said. “But then after that the blows kept coming one after the other. That’s when I realised that it’s not the aircraft, it’s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me.”
The attack left him badly disoriented with his vision affected. As the aircraft began descending steeply, Machchhar realized opening the cockpit door was the only way to prevent a bigger disaster. He tried once, but the co-pilot slammed it shut.
“I had that one last fight left in me… if I don’t do it, I’m gonna die,” Machchhar said. “And that’s when I pushed against everything I gave, everything that I had, and just went for the door and opened the door.”
He reached the door’s internal twist mechanism and opened it, allowing crew and passengers waiting outside to rush in and overpower the co-pilot.
In a separate call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, an emotional Machchhar — recovering in a hospital in Abu Dhabi — said he had been reciting the Hanuman Chalisa, a Hindu devotional hymn, throughout the ordeal. “Sorry, main aapke saamne ro raha hoon sir” — “Forgive me, I am crying in front of you, sir” — he told Modi.
“I was chanting the Hanuman Chalisa… I know that God saved me,” Machchhar said. He thanked the Saudi and UAE governments for their help and said he was confident of a full recovery, however slow.
Netanyahu praised Machchhar as “a hero for Israel, India, and the entire world” and invited him and Modi to light a flame at Israel’s Independence Day celebrations — an honor normally reserved for Israeli citizens.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8, flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv, plunged nearly 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds during the attack before making an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The UAE is investigating the assault as an attempted terrorist attack.
