{"id":635496,"date":"2026-10-03T20:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T20:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/635496\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T20:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T20:34:10","slug":"arab-news-netanyahu-invites-true-hero-indian-flydubai-captain-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/635496\/","title":{"rendered":"Arab News | Netanyahu invites \u2018true hero\u2019 Indian FlyDubai captain to Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TEL AVIV: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday invited to Israel as a guest of honour the Indian captain of a Tel Aviv-bound FlyDubai flight who offered a dramatic account of how he saved the plane after being attacked.<\/p>\n<p>Netanyahu said he wanted Captain Smit Machchhar and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, one of Israel\u2019s key international partners, to light a flame at a national ceremony for Israel\u2019s Independence Day next May, saying the role was usually reserved for Israeli citizens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are a true hero of the brave peoples of India and Israel and you are a hero of the entire world,\u201d Netanyahu said in a video his office released of his telephone conversation with the hospitalised captain.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a conversation with the Indian pilot from the flight from Dubai, Captain Smit Machchhar: <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You are a hero for Israel, India, and the entire world. I invite Prime Minister <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/narendramodi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">@NarendraModi<\/a> and you to light a flame on Israeli Independence Day.&#8221;\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/e9nSJQ6TRj\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/e9nSJQ6TRj<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/IsraeliPM\/status\/2106459702687359340?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">October 3, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>UAE investigators have said that the co-pilot planned the \u201cterrorist act\u201d by attacking Machchhar with an axe.<\/p>\n<p>Asked how the attack unfolded, Machchhar said the co-pilot had asked to take time to pray, as devout Muslims do five times a day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of locals, they do pray, which is not out of the ordinary. While he was praying, out of respect, I was just looking at the front and not at the back,\u201d Machchhar said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSuddenly after I think I would say about four to five minutes, there was a big blow to the back of my head. My first thought was that there was catastrophic damage to the aircraft and something is not right.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut then after that the blows kept coming one after the other. That\u2019s when I realised that it\u2019s not the aircraft, it\u2019s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While saying his memory was not entirely clear due to his injury, Machchhar said he managed to pull open the cockpit door \u201cbut I think he shut it back closed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had that one last fight left in me,\u201d Machchhar explained, saying he knew he faced certain death if not.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s when I pushed against everything. I gave everything that I had and just went for the door and opened the door and thankfully people were waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEL AVIV: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday invited to Israel as a guest of honour the Indian&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[272405,286723,85,50936,46,43,196883],"class_list":["post-635496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-captain","tag-flydubai","tag-il","tag-independence-day","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-prime-minister-benjamin-netanyahu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635496","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=635496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}