\n Captain Smit Machchhar, the Indian pilot who was stabbed while helping to thwart the apparent attempt to hijack the Flydubai plane, is being hailed as a hero at home.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cCaptain Smit Machchhar is a HERO,\u201d wrote Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on X. \u201cIn the face of the gravest danger and despite being seriously injured, he showed immense courage and an unwavering resolve to protect the lives of others.\u201d He added, \u201cIndia is proud of Captain Machchhar.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Leading news outlets also praised his bravery. \u201cThe pilot from Mumbai who proved to be a hero,\u201d wrote the Times of India. \u201cIndian pilot hailed after foiling alleged cockpit attack on Flydubai flight,\u201d said India Today.\n <\/p>\n
\n A CNN News-18 anchor said during his primetime program: \u201cViewers, if 166 Israelis go home tonight without a scratch, it is all down to the bravery of one single Indian, Captain Smit Machchhar.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Many Indians have also taken to social media to express their pride.\n <\/p>\n
\n Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier praised Machchhar as a \u201ctrue hero,\u201d saying he demonstrated \u201cextraordinary bravery\u201d and saved the lives of the 174 people on the plane.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cDespite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker \u2014 preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster,\u201d he said on X.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Indian embassy in Riyadh said the \u201cbrave Indian pilot\u201d had been admitted to a hospital in Tabuk, in northwest Saudi Arabia, where he is receiving medical care.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cA full update on his health is awaited but he is reported to be in stable condition. We hope that he recovers from his injuries at the earliest,\u201d it wrote on X.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Captain Smit Machchhar, the Indian pilot who was stabbed while helping to thwart the apparent attempt to hijack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-632718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}