Flydubai pilot hailed hero after onboard attack: ’I couldn’t let everybody else die’
CNN —
Smit Machchhar, the hero Flydubai captain who fought off a savage attack by his copilot, kept fighting because he could not “let everybody else die,” he said in his first public remarks since Wednesday’s suspected hijacking attempt.
Related video: Brother of Flydubai passenger speaks about flight where captain was stabbed
“In that moment, I was fighting for my life,” Machchhar told India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a video call on Friday. “Because I had fallen down… I was so severely wounded that I had fallen down… at that time, I was thinking, what if I don’t get up?
A horrific mid-air catastrophe on a plane heading to Tel Aviv was averted in a stunning turn of events on Wednesday when passengers and crew bravely rushed into the cockpit and regained control of the aircraft.
Machchhar said he was on the ground in cockpit when he realized the plane was going down.
“And I knew in that moment – one last push, Smit! Just do it. The door is right there,” he told Modi. “And even at that time, he was beating me up.”
“And then I just opened it… and then everybody came,” he said, referring to several other passengers who then rushed into the cockpit and restrained his attacker.
“I was doing this for my life, but at the same time, I knew that I couldn’t let everybody else die.”
