Pilot in flydubai attack says could not let ‘all those people die’

DUBAI: An Indian pilot attacked by his co-pilot aboard a flight from the UAE to Israel said on Friday that he “could not let all those people die”, in his first public remarks after he helped stop the plane from crashing.

His actions on Wednesday helped avert disaster when he managed to open the cockpit door despite his injuries, allowing passengers and crew to take control of the plane and make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

The co-pilot has been returned to the United Arab Emirates, where the incident is under investigation to determine if there was any “terrorist activity or intent”.

The mostly Israeli passengers on the flight have been flown back to Israel on a replacement plane.

Flydubai captain Smit Machchhar told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a call from his hospital bed that he knew he had to act quickly, saying that opening the cockpit door was a “last push” to get help.

“I had suffered so many injuries that I had collapsed. At that time, I could feel that the aircraft was going down. I knew this was the last push, that the door was right there,” he said. “I was being hit even then, but I just opened the door and everyone came in.”

Machchhar, who has 17 years of aviation experience, including 11 as a captain, described the moment he realised the plane was going down while he was lying injured.

He told Modi that during the ordeal, he had recited a Hindu devotional prayer dedicated to the deity Hanuman.

“I know God himself saved me,” he said.

The pilot said years of aviation experience allowed him to understand what was happening even while he was wounded.

The UAE’s general civil aviation authority on Friday commended Machchhar, the flight crew and passengers who responded to the attack.

“Their decisive and swift intervention, and the sense of responsibility behind it, helped contain the situation and prevented more serious consequences, reflecting a level of readiness, cooperation and shared responsibility in facing exceptional emergencies,” it said in a statement published by official UAE news agency WAM.

The circumstances of the confrontation are under investigation, but the co-pilot allegedly attacked Machchhar, leaving him wounded and triggering a struggle for control of the aircraft.

Passengers described rushing the cockpit and a fight for control after the plane plummeted -- losing around 17,000 feet of altitude in the span of a minute, according to the Flightradar24 website.