{"id":2932,"date":"2026-10-19T11:03:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T06:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2932"},"modified":"2026-10-19T11:03:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T06:03:51","slug":"flydubai-captain-recounts-axe-attack-during-israel-bound-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2932","title":{"rendered":"flydubai captain recounts axe attack during Israel-bound flight"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The captain of a flydubai flight who was attacked by a co-pilot during an Israel-bound flight has described blocking axe blows to the head and screaming for \u200bhelp as he reached for a knob to open the cockpit door.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Captain Smit \u200cMachchhar has been hailed as a hero for his role in averting disaster on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv last month, helping to thwart what the UAE attorney general has said was an attempted suicide \u200battack<\/a> by the co-pilot who intended to crash the plane into Ben Gurion Airport.<\/p>\n

Speaking \u200bin an interview with The National<\/em> newspaper from a hospital bed in \u2060Abu Dhabi, his head and left arm bandaged, Machchhar said that when the first blow \u200blanded, he thought something had gone \u201chorribly wrong with the aircraft structure\u201d, before quickly realising he was being \u200battacked and things had \u201ctaken a drastic turn\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next thought was I need to get help in here,\u201d he said in the interview published on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy immediate action was to free myself from the seat belts, and \u200bI tried to just block the blows as much as I could,\u201d he said, pointing \u200bto his arm that was wounded as he defended himself. \u201cThe blows were coming on the head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cImmediately my hand \u200cwent \u2060to the knob which opens the door, and screaming for my colleagues, screaming his name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that was the first time when I lost my consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aircraft, flight FZ1073, was in Saudi airspace when the co-pilot attacked Machchhar with a crash axe, typically kept in the cockpit for \u200bemergency use.<\/p>\n

The incident caused \u200bthe airliner to \u2060plunge 16,000 feet in 30 seconds before the attacker was overwhelmed and two other pilots who were on board landed the aircraft safely \u200bin Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

The suspect, an Omani national, was transferred to \u200bthe UAE, flydubai\u2019s \u2060home country.<\/p>\n

The plan was inspired by the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, UAE public prosecutors say, as a result of their criminal investigation launched on October 1.<\/p>\n

Machchhar said he heard \u2060the cockpit \u200bdoor opening and screaming \u201cbetween my colleague and the guy\u201d.<\/p>\n

He \u200bsaid the scariest thing he felt was the aircraft nose \u201csteeply going down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not very sure that I\u2019ll make it \u200bout alive from this. Did I give up? No.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The captain of a flydubai flight who was attacked by a co-pilot during an Israel-bound flight has described blocking axe blows to the head and screaming for \u200bhelp as he reached for a knob to open the cockpit door. Captain Smit \u200cMachchhar has been hailed as a hero for his role in averting disaster on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv last month, helping to thwart what the UAE attorney general has said was an attempted suicide \u200battack by the co-pilot who intended to crash the plane into Ben…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}