After being stabbed and seriously wounded by his Omani copilot, the Indian captain of the flydubai flight managed to click open the cockpit door in what allowed several Israelis to burst in and subdue the attacker, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reveals.
Off-duty flydubai pilots who were sitting in passenger seats were then able to conduct a safe emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.
Captain Smit Machchhar, captain of a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv that suffered an emergency mid-air, with the copilot subdued after stabbing Machchhar in an alleged attempt to crash the plane full of Israelis, September 30, 2026. (LinkedIn)
Netanyahu spokesman Doron Spielman says the wounded captain, Smit Machchhar, bloodied and lying on the floor, had drawn on “the last moments of his energy” to click open the release on the cockpit door.
“At that moment, some of the passengers who realized something was happening raced forward, entered the pilot’s cabin. They saw the injured pilot on the ground, and the other… the attacking pilot was standing over the control panel, bashing the control panel,” he says.
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