‘You’ll be lucky if you have a doctor’: Smit Machchhar’s prophetic words before flydubai stabbing

Captain Smit Machchhar, the Indian stabbed by his co-pilot on a flydubai plane, once spoke about the importance of trained crew and how they can save lives

Captain Smit Machchhar, the Indian stabbed by his co-pilot on a flydubai plane, once spoke about the importance of trained crew and how they can save lives in a mid-air emergency. His prophetic words resurfaced after Machchhar averted a major aviation disaster by foiling his co-pilot’s plan to crash the plane.

Captain Smit Machchhar is an Indian pilot who thwarted a plane crash attempt.

The flydubai incident

On Wednesday, September 30, an Omani pilot on flydubai flight FZ1073 attempted to crash the plane after stabbing Smit Machchhar, who was the first officer of the flight.

Machchhar, 39, was covered with blood on the floor when he managed to click the release to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to overpower the co-pilot, Reuters reported.

The plane was flying from Dubai to Israel and had 174 passengers, mostly Israelis. Passengers and crew managed to overpower the Omani pilot and the flight made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

‘Who is going to save you?’

Last year, Indian pilot Smit Machchhar appeared on the Bona-Fide Banter podcast where he shared his thoughts on mid-air emergencies, the dangers of being in aviation, his journey to becoming a pilot and more.

During the conversation, he stressed on the importance of cabin crew, saying that they are highly trained professionals who have learned first aid. The topic cropped up when the podcast host spoke about the difference between the qualifications of cockpit and cabin crew.

“The crew — those people go through some rigorous training,” Machchhar replied. “They have to get trained for safety procedures, emergency procedures, and first aid.”

“When we are up there and something happens, who is going to save you?” the flydubai pilot questioned. “You’ll be lucky enough to have a doctor on board. If not, the crew is trained… they can save your life.”

It turned out that Machchhar did get lucky. When he was stabbed by his co-pilot yesterday, there was one doctor on the flight who managed to stabilize him until the flight landed and he was rushed to the hospital.

The doctor spoke to Times of Israel about the scary incident.

‘I managed to stop the bleeding’

Israeli dentist Dr Shota Musayev ran to the cockpit when he heard screaming on flydubai flight FZ1073. There, he saw Machchhar lying in “bad shape” on the floor, bleeding.

“When I heard screaming, after 10 seconds I ran — I didn’t wait,” Musayev told The Times of Israel. “When I came into the cockpit, the pilot was in real bad shape, with heavy bleeding, particularly from his head.”

“I was the only doctor on the plane, and eventually I managed to stop the bleeding and stabilize his blood pressure,” he said.

“These were very hard moments, but together with a few brave people on the plane, we managed to avert a situation that was very close to a disaster,” he recalled. “Now I just want to go home and hug my children.”