Smit Machchhar, the hero pilot who foiled the Flydubai flight hijacking

Until Wednesday morning, Smit Machchhar's name was known only to FlyDubai airline flight logs and colleagues who appreciated his professionalism. Today, that name has bounced on the phones of world leaders, from Benjamin Netanyahu to Narendra Modi, pronounced with the solemnity reserved for great contemporary heroes. Machchhar is the man who, with his body wounded by his own co-pilot's slashes and the plane violently losing altitude over the skies of the Middle East, found the strength to react, unlock the cabin door and hand over control of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 to his crew. A normal man who responded to a nightmare with extraordinary clarity.

That "spark" born by chance

Smit Machchhar's story is not that of the child who spends his childhood with his nose turned up looking at airplane contrails. His destiny seemed already written within the walls of Ghatkopar East, a residential suburb of Mumbai, where his family has run a textile company for generations. Smit was studying for a degree in business management, ready to take the reins of the family business, when he stumbled upon an aviation seminar one afternoon. “That's where the spark happened,” he said in a podcast last year. An electrocution that had to deal with the most classic fears of an Indian mother, frightened by an unknown and apparently inaccessible world. But Machchhar belongs to the generation that marked a turning point for his country: he rode the boom of the Indian aeronautical sector of the last decade, transforming that initial distrust into the beginning of a brilliant international career.

Thirteen years spent on security

Those who know him in the business describe Machchhar as a methodical professional. His LinkedIn profile shows 13 years of experience in commercial aviation, most of which spent in Indian skies with SpiceJet, where he held the role of senior commander and line flight instructor. In 2022 the international leap with the transfer to Flydubai. In his professional presentations, Smit has always included a phrase that today sounds almost prophetic: "Great attention to safety". It wasn't a resume cliché. That dedication to procedures turned into his greatest asset Wednesday, when he found himself trapped in a high-altitude melee on Tel Aviv-bound flight FZ1073.

The sacrifice that saved 174 lives

The authorities have no doubts: the co-pilot wanted to crash the plane. When the attacker pulled out the blade, Machchhar didn't just think about defending himself. Despite serious wounds and blood, he continued to fight to regain control, eventually managing to unlock the armored cockpit door to let in help. An act that allowed two passengers to take control and land the Boeing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. As his parents flew from Mumbai to his hospital bed in Saudi Arabia, where the pilot is now in stable condition, the two leaders of Israel and India celebrated his valor. Modi, in particular, lauded his "unwavering determination to protect the lives of others."