FlyDubai pilot Smit Machchhar's path from nervous pilot to cockpit 'hero'

Smit Machchhar, who was stabbed by his copilot, opened the cockpit door after fighting back, allowing passengers to subdue the attacker and avert a crash

By Mihir Mishra

 

Smit Machchhar, the FlyDubai commander whose actions after being stabbed in the cockpit helped avert disaster, hadn’t even planned on becoming a pilot.   

He had studied textile engineering with a view to joining his family’s business, and was partway through a management course when an aviation seminar changed his plans. 

 

“Becoming a pilot was not first choice,” Machchhar said on the YouTube podcast Bona-Fide Banter in October 2025. His mother was frightened by the idea, partly because back then hardly anyone in India knew how to go about becoming a pilot. His father, whom he described as the calmer of the two, took it in stride and told him to figure out how and where he could train. 

Now he’s being hailed by leaders around the world for his bravery and quick thinking during a midair struggle with his crewmate that sent the Boeing Co. 737 Max aircraft into a sudden, deep dive.

 

 

US President Donald Trump, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi called him a hero for fighting back despite his stab wounds and opening the cockpit door to the cabin. That allowed passengers on the Dubai-to-Tel Aviv flight, which was carrying 174 people, most of them Israelis, to rush in, subdue the attacker and take control after the plane plunged more than 14,000 feet (4,300 meters) within 30 seconds at almost the speed of sound.

 

“The pilot who was there was an Indian pilot” and “very badly wounded,” Netanyahu said. “He’s fighting, I think, for his life right now, but in an act of unbelievable courage, he managed to unlock the door to the cockpit.”

 

The aircraft made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Unconfirmed footage of the plane on the tarmac there showed a damaged vertical stabilizer, a sign of the forces the airframe went through during the dive.

 

The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia had earlier said in a statement posted on X that Machchhar had been admitted to a hospital in Tabuk and was “receiving necessary medical attention. A full update on his health is awaited but he is reported to be in stable condition.”

 

He has since been moved to Abu Dhabi for continued treatment and recovery, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said on Oct. 1. India’s ambassador to the UAE visited him in hospital and had earlier met his family, the ministry said, adding that it saluted the captain’s “valour and courage.”

 

Meanwhile, Modi has spoken to Machchhar’s parents and wife, and assured them that Indian missions abroad are providing all possible help, according to a senior Indian government official, who shared this with reporters in a text message.

 

While FlyDubai confirmed that an altercation occurred between pilots in the flight deck, it didn’t comment on the reasons for the fight and urged parties to refrain from speculation. The airline has suspended flights to and from Israel as the investigation continues.

 

Boeing Jets

 

Machchhar has his origins in Modi’s home state of Gujarat and hails from Mumbai, India’s financial capital. He flew for SpiceJet Ltd. before leaving for FlyDubai in 2022. Boeing single-aisle jets are what he’s been flying for about 16 years, with 9,750 hours clocked piloting them, according to his LinkedIn profile.

 

His pilot colleagues said he currently lives in Dubai with his wife and children and has a brother, who is a pilot with India’s Akasa Air.

 

He did his commercial pilot license training in New Zealand, his first step outside India. Before that he had flown only a couple of times as a passenger, since a train ticket cost a fraction of the airfare. His first commercial flight was between Bengaluru in southern India and New Delhi, while he was still a trainee on probation and flying alongside senior examiners.

 

“That was scary. Not because of the flying part, but the responsibility,” Machchhar said. Looking back, he said, “relaxing would have been the best option.” Stressing, he added, “is not going to help, at least in this industry.”

 

At SpiceJet Ltd., which he said was the first airline to bring the 737 Max to India, Machchhar was one of the earliest batches of pilots to train on the jet. After the second of two fatal Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, the airline grounded its fleet, and he was assigned to fly one of the idle planes, without passengers, from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. As he left home that day, his father asked whether he was flying the Max. Machchhar lied to him, saying it was an NG, the older version of the 737. There had been times, he said, when “even I was unsure” whether he wanted his parents on the plane. 

 

He has flown the Max since it returned to service.

 

Among the hardest flights of his career, he said, was a recent approach to Mykonos in Greece, where wind-shear forced him into the escape maneuver that pilots practice in the simulator every six months. Asked later in the interview to name his favorite airport, he picked the same one.

 

He also described a morning flight on which, shortly after takeoff, the cabin crew reported that a woman was having labor pains far too early in her pregnancy. He and his first officer treated it as a diversion, cleared the cockpit and checked the weather at nearby airfields. A few minutes later, the crew called to say a baby had been born. Paramedics met the plane on landing, and mother and child were both fine.

 

Machchhar also mentors students at FlyBy Aviation, a pilot-training academy he became involved with alongside three friends he has flown with since about 2007. These days, he said, he tries to leave aviation behind when he walks out of the cockpit: “Now the kids are there, they want to play with you.”

 

Asked at the end of the interview to sum up being a pilot in one word, he said: “Blessed.”