The Israelis call them rosh gadol in Hebrew, an expression that is usually a compliment and that, in this case, seems tailor-made for the three or four people who quickly got up from their seats on the flight home from Dubai and, above all, stopped behaving like simple passengers when the co-pilot stabbed the pilot in an apparent attempt to crash the Flydubai plane with 174 people on board that was covering the route between Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and Tel Aviv, in Israel.
The first was the wife of Tzvika Manes, CEO of a bank, who accompanied her young daughter to the front bathroom of the plane, located next to the cockpit. There he heard noises and screams coming from inside and immediately notified one of the off-duty pilots, a man originally from the Fiji Islands who was sitting in the first rows and who approached the door.
"At that moment, two other passengers and I intervened and together we managed to subdue the attacker," says Tzvika. To immobilize him, they tied his hands and feet with cables from headphones or phone and computer chargers.
Musaev Shota, a dentist, then began treating the Indian commander. "He had serious injuries to his head, abdomen and wrists. I managed to stabilize him. I was the only doctor on board," he explains.
With the oxygen mask
An image taken during those minutes shows the captain with his face covered in blood and an oxygen mask. The local media have made him the hero of the story: Smit Machchhar, who has been working for the Emirati company for four years, managed to thwart his co-pilot's plans while he attacked him with a knife or, possibly, a small axe.
The commander managed to activate two alarms and, before collapsing, managed to open the cabin door, reinforced since the attacks of September 11, 2001 and designed to only be opened from the inside.
That's how three Israeli passengers found him. The commander's body practically blocked the entrance. Upon entering the cabin, they saw the attacker destroying the instruments on the control panel, while the white walls were stained with blood.
"I managed to grab him by the neck from behind and pull him away," Yaniv Hayun told Benjamin Netanyahu, who went to Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, to receive the passengers of the emergency flight.
Machchhar was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition, the Indian Embassy in Riyadh said Wednesday night, adding that its officials were in contact with the pilot's family and Saudi authorities.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called Machchhar a "hero." "In the face of the most extreme danger and despite being seriously injured, he demonstrated immense courage and unwavering determination to protect the lives of others. His bravery helped save hundreds of lives and averted a great tragedy," Modi wrote in X.
Few public details are known about Machchhar, but according to his LinkedIn profile, he has been working for Flydubai for around four years. Before joining the airline, he spent 11 years at SpiceJet, an Indian low-cost carrier, where he served as a senior commander and line instructor captain. According to his profile, he has accumulated more than 9,750 flight hours.
"Mayday/Air Crash"
Hayun was wearing a blood-stained shirt and apologized to the prime minister for not having been able to change before the match. "It's his. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to kill him, although it will take him a while to recover," he explained.
He also said that he managed to take control of the plane and managed to stop its descent before handing over control to one of the pilots who was traveling off duty.
"Do you know how to fly a Boeing?" Netanyahu asked him. "I have some experience because I always watch Mayday/Air Crash Investigation," he responded. He was referring to the television series that reconstructs plane crashes and explains in detail their causes and circumstances.
During the struggle between the group of passengers and the attacker, who would be of Omani nationality, one of the Israelis, who described himself to The Jerusalem Post as a "combatant supporting the action," said that he heard a girl scream from the back of the plane: "I don't want my father to die." At that moment, he told the newspaper, "I also stopped for a moment to think about my children."
The message from the plane
Once the confrontation in the cabin ended, a passenger recorded a video with his phone to ask for help.
"We need help. Anyone who can listen to me: we have detained the terrorist and we are landing near Tabuk, in Saudi Arabia. We are all fine, except the commander," he explained.
Machchhar himself had said in a previous interview, now recovered after the incident, that passengers should "treat the crew better" because, when things go wrong, they may need them. "They can save their lives," he said then.
That is precisely what he did when he managed to open that closed door between salvation and disaster.
Netanyahu linked the incident to "anti-Israel propaganda" and said it was an episode of "fanaticism and hatred of an incalculable level," after the show's host, Sean Hannity, called the confrontation an episode of "anti-Semitism."
"I don't know the exact background of this person, the attacker, but it is clear that he hated Israelis, since he was going to kill about 170 of them on that plane, also committing suicide," the prime minister said.
While the Israeli Government talks about terrorism, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has limited itself to describing what happened as a "security incident", through its General Civil Aviation Authority, and has assured that it continues to investigate.
