{"id":618922,"date":"2026-10-02T23:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T23:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618922\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T23:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T23:56:11","slug":"wounded-flydubai-captain-recounts-fight-to-save-passengers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618922\/","title":{"rendered":"Wounded FlyDubai captain recounts fight to save passengers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Zealand-trained Indian airline captain who helped thwart an apparent attempt to crash a FlyDubai flight said he had to get back on his feet to save passengers after being stabbed by his co-pilot.<\/p>\n

Smit Machchhar was wounded on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv<\/a>, Israel, as the plane suddenly plunged more than 4000 metres in about a minute.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had so many wounds. I had fallen down,\u201d Machchhar said from a hospital in Abu Dhabi on a video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. <\/p>\n

The Omani national stabbed the pilot and tried to bring down the plane. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

\u201cI was fighting for my life. At one point I realised that if I didn\u2019t get up \u2026 then passengers would lose their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Machchhar was seriously injured in the attack but managed to open the cockpit door<\/a>, allowing passengers to enter and restrain the attacker as the Boeing 737 descended sharply, witnesses and Israeli authorities said.<\/p>\n

Machcchar trained at Mainland Air in Dunedin for about 18 months<\/a> in 2008 before returning to India to continue his aviation career.<\/p>\n

\"Video<\/p>\n

Video footage circulating on social media showed two men on the plane’s floor, bloodied and wounded. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n

The flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, with 182 people on board, was diverted to Tabuk in northwestern Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing.<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacker, an Omani national, was arrested in Saudi Arabia. His motive for the attack was not immediately clear.<\/p>\n

Israel was set to begin repatriation flights to bring back passengers stranded in the United Arab Emirates after commercial travel between the two countries was suspended following the attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Zealand-trained Indian airline captain who helped thwart an apparent attempt to crash a FlyDubai flight said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,5107,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-618922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}