(The Turkish Post) – A Flydubai captain has described blocking axe blows from his first officer during an attack in the cockpit of a Dubai to Tel Aviv flight, in his first account of the Sept. 30 assault that forced the plane to divert.
Captain Smit Machchhar, speaking from a hospital bed in Abu Dhabi, said he realized he was under attack only after the first blow struck his head. All 172 people aboard flight FZ1073 survived.
Flydubai captain recounts the assault
Machchhar said the first officer turned on him more than an hour before the plane was due to land. “In the next couple of seconds, when the hits kept on coming, [I realised] it’s the other person who I thought was supposed to be on the team,” he said.
He said he tried to shield himself as the blows landed. “I tried to block the blows as much as I could. [I was] screaming for my colleagues. I fell face down in the cockpit,” the Flydubai captain said. He said the most frightening moment was hearing the engines spool down.
Machchhar, an Indian national, said he freed himself from his seat belts as he came under attack and kept trying to fend off the blows while calling for help. He said the first blow to his head was so hard that he first thought the aircraft itself had failed.
Inside the cockpit attack
Machchhar said he reached for the cockpit door release while calling for help, opening it once before it shut again. Two Flydubai pilots travelling as passengers forced their way in and subdued the first officer, then took control of the aircraft.
“At that point, I realised that you will not survive this,” he said of the moment the engines lost power. He suffered serious head and arm injuries in the cockpit attack and was barely conscious as colleagues fought to reach him.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the captain for opening the cockpit door, a step that let others reach the flight deck. Reinforced cockpit doors, designed to keep intruders out, can also hinder a rescue when the threat is inside.
What happened to flight FZ1073
Flight FZ1073 had left Dubai bound for Tel Aviv on Sept. 30 when the assault began. The crew diverted the Boeing 737, and the captain was taken off the plane at Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The airline described an altercation on the flight deck.
Emirati prosecutors have called the episode a premeditated terrorist act and said the first officer began carrying out a terrorist operation in the air. The first officer has been detained in the United Arab Emirates and faces terrorism charges. Authorities have not established a motive.
In the hours after the diversion, authorities denied rumors that the aircraft had been hijacked. The flight was one of many daily services between the Gulf and Israel, routes that carry heightened security.
A long recovery and an open question
The Flydubai captain said he did not know what drove his colleague to act and had noticed nothing unusual during the two hours they flew together. “It makes no sense to me,” he said. He praised his colleagues’ handling of the landing as commendable.
Machchhar faces a long recovery but said he wanted to return to flying. He said the industry should learn from the attack, and he expected a review of cockpit security to follow. “I won’t blame it on anyone. You’ve got to learn from the event,” the Flydubai captain said.
The case has renewed debate over cockpit security and crew screening. Some airlines require two crew members on the flight deck at all times so that no pilot is ever left alone, a rule tightened across the industry after earlier cockpit incidents.
