Smit Machchhar, the hero Flydubai captain who fought off a savage attack by his copilot, kept fighting because he could not “let everybody else die,” he said in his first public remarks since Wednesday’s suspected hijacking attempt.
“In that moment, I was fighting for my life,” Machchhar told India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a video call on Friday. “I was so severely wounded that I had fallen down… at that time, I was thinking what if I don’t get up?”
A horrific mid-air catastrophe on flight FZ 1073 heading to Tel Aviv was averted in a stunning turn of events on Wednesday when passengers bravely rushed into the cockpit and stand-in pilots regained control of the aircraft.
Machchhar was badly injured while trying to fend off the attacker. Images showed a gruesome scene onboard, with blood splashed across the cockpit and the seriously wounded pilot lying on the floor, his pained face partially covered with a mask.
Machchhar told Modi he was on the ground in the cockpit when he realized the plane was going down.
“And I knew in that moment – one last push, Smit! Just do it. The door is right there,” he said. “And even at that time, he was beating me up.”
“And then I just opened it… and then everybody came,” he said, referring to several other passengers who then rushed into the cockpit and restrained his attacker.
“I was doing this for my life, but at the same time, I knew that I couldn’t let everybody else die.”
Modi praised Machchhar’s heroics, telling the veteran pilot that his “courage, patience and quick thinking… saved the lives of so many people.”
“You yourself were fighting the battle of life and death,” Modi said.
Machchhar is recovering at a hospital in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He was initially treated for his injuries in Saudi Arabia, where the diverted plane was forced to make an emergency landing.
The father of two had suffered “massive blood loss” and was “severely wounded,” dentist Shota Musaev, a passenger on the flight who helped treat him, previously told CNN.
His bravery “managed to prevent a 9/11 disaster,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CNN on Wednesday.
Machchhar appeared emotional in the call with Modi while recalling the ordeal, and apologized to the prime minister for crying on the phone.
The two later spoke in Gujarati, the language predominantly spoken by people from India’s western state of Gujarat, which is where Modi is from.
Machchhar said his daughter had come to visit him in hospital but got scared seeing him in his condition. His youngest son, who is two, has not been able to meet him yet, he said.
Born into a family in the textile business, becoming a pilot wasn’t Machchhar’s “childhood dream,” he told the Bona-Fide Banter podcast in 2025. Initially, he’d enrolled in a textile engineering course after school.
Speaking to Modi, Machchhar said he felt a sense of pride.
“Now that you have called me, I am really really proud of myself,” Machchhar said. “I wasn’t proud before this, but now I am.”
His wife, Sonal Machchhar, told CNN affiliate CNN News18 that the family had not asked him yet about what happened because “we don’t want him to get flashbacks of the incident.”
“We want him to fully recover, and I’m sure once he is in the right space to talk, he will share it with everyone of how the incident went on with him,” Sonal Machchhar said.
What we know about the suspect
The plane’s co-pilot and Machchhar’s alleged attacker has now been transferred from Saudi Arabia, where the plane landed, to the UAE, where he faces a terrorism investigation.
A top UAE official on Friday described the mid-flight crisis as a “dangerous terrorist act.” Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s president, also cautioned against conspiracy theories as investigators look to establish the facts surrounding what happened.
The suspect is an Omani national, Netanyahu told CNN Thursday. Oman and Israel do not have formal diplomatic relations, and it is not yet clear how the Omani pilot would have obtained clearance to fly to Israel.
Authorities are yet to divulge the co-pilot’s identity. And there hasn’t been any confirmation of his motive or of the weapon he used in the violent altercation, though Netanyahu suggested to Fox News this might have been a knife or an axe.
The Israeli prime minister said the suspect had undergone “Islamist radical indoctrination,” adding that it was too early to say whether he had connections to Iran or anyone else. He has so far stopped short of describing the incident as a terrorist act.
Netanyahu said the attacker was suicidal, adding that he had called out “kill me” after being restrained by other passengers.
US President Donald Trump suggested later Thursday the pilot may be linked to Iran, though he provided no details.
This story had been updated with additional details.
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