Flydubai Captain Says He Helped Save Flight 1073 After Being Stabbed by Copilot

Flydubai Flight 1073, traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv, suddenly dropped more than 15,000 feet on Wednesday, according to Business Insider. The report says Captain Smit Machchhar had been stabbed by his copilot before passengers and crew members subdued the first officer. The aircraft safely diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Machchhar spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi by video call from the hospital in Hindi, in a video published Friday. He said that even while lying on the cockpit floor, he could sense the aircraft was going down. Machchhar described pushing the door open as his only chance and said others then arrived and “played their part too.”

The report names Yaniv Hayun, Or Pardilov, Shota Musayev, and Sigalit as passengers who helped regain control of the airplane. They later met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and described tying the first officer with a headphone cable. Netanyahu said the other pilot was arrested after landing and called Machchhar a “true hero.”

The account highlights the split-second decisions that can define an aviation emergency. Machchhar said he has been a pilot for 17 years and a captain for 11 years, and Business Insider reported that his LinkedIn profile shows he joined Flydubai four years ago after starting at SpiceJet. The key takeaway for readers: the safe diversion followed combined action by the captain, crew, and passengers during an extraordinary cockpit crisis.