One critical decision. And it saved the lives of 174 live on board the flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv and many others on the ground who might have been potentially targeted in a 9/11-style attack. Despite grievously injured, Indian Captain Smit Machchhar's timely act of unlocking the cockpit door helped others subdue the Omani co-pilot Hammam al-Hammami who attacked him and tried to crash the plane.
In a teaser released by Sky News Arabia ahead of an exclusive interview, Machchhar recounted the horrific ordeal on September 30. "I was doing my job, there was a hard hit on my head," he described how he felt when his co-pilot attacked him out of the blue when the flight was in Jordanian airspace.
When asked if there was a moment he thought he might not make it, the Indian pilot admitted that he knew he had to do something to stay alive.
"I mean, I am trying to get over it now. But yes, there was a moment when I realised. I told myself that Smit, do something. You can't die like this," he said. "I'm not saying I accepted my death. It was like, do something, otherwise…"
Recounting the moment he unlocked the cockpit door, Machchhar said, "I remember being face down, and of course the panic which was there, the screaming which was there."
He said one of his colleagues took over the controls and praised his actions: "It's something that I'll keep with me till I die."
When the door was unlocked, a few passengers and the cabin crew entered the cockpit and subdued al-Hammami. After the flight was stabilised, two additional pilots on board diverted the flight and made an emergency landing at Saudi Arabia's Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk.
