Flydubai captain says copilot asked to pray, then struck him from behind; describes exactly how he opened cockpit door

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed as “a true hero” the Indian captain who helped thwart the terror attack aboard a flydubai flight to Tel Aviv, as the pilot recalled his dramatic account of being bludgeoned by his Omani copilot while the aircraft plunged toward the ground.

Captain Smit Machchhar spoke to Netanyahu by phone on Saturday as other details of Wednesday’s rescue on Flight 1073 emerged, along with questions regarding Israeli negligence ahead of the near-disaster.

Machchhar told the prime minister that shortly before the attack on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, his copilot, identified Friday as Hamam al-Hammami, asked to pray.

Machchhar said that four or five minutes later, he was suddenly struck with “a big blow” to the back of his head, and initially believed the plane had suffered catastrophic damage.

“But then, after that, the blows kept coming, one after the other,” said the pilot, who is in the United Arab Emirates recovering from his wounds. “That’s when I realized that it’s not the aircraft, it’s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me.”

Al-Hammami attacked Machchhar inside the cockpit with a crash ax and attempted to take control of the aircraft, the UAE prosecutor general said Saturday. Crash axes are kept in cockpits for emergencies, including to cut through panels or break windows.

Barely able to see after being struck repeatedly, Machchhar said he then felt the aircraft “sharply going down.”

His first attempt to open the cockpit door was thwarted by al-Hammami, he said. While lying on the cockpit floor, he remembered hearing people screaming. “I had that one last fight left in me,” Machchhar said

“If I don’t do it, I’m going to die,” he recalled thinking. “I gave everything that I had, and just went for the door and opened the door.” Passengers waiting outside then rushed into the cockpit and helped regain control of the plane.

Machchhar explained that the cockpit door could be opened from inside using a twist-to-open mechanism, while anyone trying to enter from outside needed a code.

“My colleagues from outside were trying to put in the code, but the guy was not allowing to open the code,” he explained.

He added that he managed to reach the cockpit doorknob and give it a “short, quick twist” to open.

“It’s a twist of fate,” Netanyahu replied, “and it’s a twist of faith, and what you did is remarkable.”

During the conversation, Netanyahu invited Machchhar and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an ally of the premier, to light a torch at Israel’s next Independence Day celebration, despite lacking the authority to make the selection unilaterally.

Under the government-established selection process, torch lighters are chosen through a public advisory committee and subsequently approved through the designated ministerial process, which under Netanyahu’s recent governments has been led by Likud loyalist Transportation Minister Miri Regev.

“You are a hero of Israel, you are a hero of India, and you are a hero of the entire world,” Netanyahu told Machchhar. “And I can tell you that people here will welcome you with open arms.”

Passenger recounts fight to save nosediving plane

Meanwhile, Yaniv Hayun, the plumber who prevented Flight 1073 from nosediving after Machchhar was attacked, offered his own blow-by-blow account of the chaos aboard the plane.

Speaking to Channel 12, Hayun said he rushed toward the cockpit after hearing screams that someone had been stabbed, only to be thrown to the floor as the aircraft shook violently.

“At some stage I was able to get up when the plane balanced out a little,” Hayun recalled. “Then I went to the door [of the cockpit]. A crew member was standing there, apparently a pilot, as he had on a white shirt… I moved him and opened the door. He didn’t resist. It was a little difficult [to open] because the Indian pilot was lying on the door. The terrorist was bent over with his knees on the controls between the pilot seats in the cockpit and was trying to break the equipment.”

Hayun said that he then grabbed al-Hammami by the neck and moved him aside, after which other Israelis managed to tie him up.

After pulling the terrorist away from the cockpit, Hayun said he looked through the window and saw the plane heading toward the ground, though “not in a very steep direction.”

He grabbed the controls and helped stabilize the aircraft until, seconds later, one of the off-duty pilots aboard took over. He had previously recalled knowing how to stabilize the plane from watching a TV show about airborne disasters.

“I went back to the terrorist. A little later we beat him so he wouldn’t resist any longer,” Hayun added.

Hayun said passengers remained suspicious of the other crew members after the attack, unsure whether any were connected to al-Hammami, and kept them under close watch for the rest of the flight.

Attack said to expose ‘colossal’ Israeli security failure

Al-Hammami, who was reported to have been previously banned from flying by Oman’s national airline over concerns that he had been radicalized, had flown flydubai aircraft on the Dubai-Tel Aviv route several times before allegedly attempting to crash Flight 1073, according to a Channel 12 report on Saturday.

Israeli authorities were reportedly investigating whether he had flown the same route in the days immediately preceding the terror attack.

Flydubai provided Israeli authorities with the names of the flight crew, including al-Hammami, ahead of Wednesday’s flight, but none sparked security concerns, Channel 12 reported.

Israel was unaware that al-Hammami had reportedly been barred from flying by his former employer, Oman Air, over concerns about his radicalization. According to the report, the Transportation Ministry does not oversee foreign airlines’ vetting of pilots as required by law, while the Shin Bet and Mossad do not conduct their own background checks. The ministry confirmed that it does not conduct background checks later on Saturday.

Unnamed security sources described the failure as a “colossal security screw-up,” saying al-Hammami had been planning the attack for some time while Israel had “not a scrap of information on him.”

As of Saturday, Israeli investigators had yet to be given access to al-Hammami, who is under investigation in the UAE, and are relying on material provided by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, where he was first held after the plane landed, the report noted.

Channel 12 also reported that Israel, together with unnamed foreign authorities, was “racing against time” to determine whether there were additional pilots from enemy and hostile states flying foreign airlines in and out of Ben Gurion Airport in the wake of the attack.

In recent years, pilots from Iran, Syria and Iraq and other enemy states have flown foreign airliners into and out of Israel, the outlet reported, citing unnamed professional sources. These pilots reportedly have dual citizenship, with a second passport potentially issued by a non-enemy state.