Heroic Indian pilot of FlyDubai, Captain Smith Machar, recounts the attempted hijacking with PM Netanyahu

The heroic Indian pilot of FlyDubai, Captain Smith Machar, recounts the attempted attack in a conversation with Netanyahu from the hospital.

“The co-pilot wanted to pray, it’s something the locals do – they pray. It’s not unusual. While he was praying, out of respect, I looked forward and not back, and after 4-5 minutes I felt a strong blow to the back of my head.

My first thought was that there was catastrophic damage to the plane and something was wrong, but the blows continued one after the other, and then I realized that it wasn’t the plane, it was the other guy who was with me in the cockpit.”

Captain Machar said that he could hardly see from the force of the blows, it was blurry and the plane began to plummet downward. “He closed the cockpit door,” he recalled.

“I was lying on the floor and I heard the people screaming, I realized that I had one more fight left: if I don’t do this I will die – I opened the door with the rest of my strength and people were already waiting there who jumped in.”

The captain said that the Boeing 737 door has a rotary opening mechanism, and from the outside it can only be opened with a secret code. “My colleagues tried to punch in the code, but the other pilot held the door,” he said.

“The only way to open it was to reach the handle itself and turn it. I did it with all my strength, it was short and fast.