Flydubai captain says he opened cockpit door after copilot blocked crew from using code to open it from outside

Flydubai Captain Smit Machchhar gives Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a detailed account of how he managed to open the cockpit door while under attack from his Omani copilot, a crucial move that allowed passengers to stop Hamam al-Hammami from crashing the plane.

“The door from the inside has a twist-to-open mechanism,” says Machchhar during a phone call with the prime minister.

“From the outside it can only be opened with a code,” he explains. “My colleagues from outside were trying to put in with the code, but the guy was not allowing to open the code.”

Machchar says that “the only way to open the door was to reach the knob, and like any other knob just to twist it open, and it opens on its own.”

“It was a short quick twist,” he remembers.

“Once I had my hands on the knob, I guess I twisted it and I opened it,” says Machchar.

“It was twist of fate,” says Netanyahu, “and a twist of faith.”