Captain Smit Machchhar describes the attack he faced from his co-pilot during a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv on September 30th. He recounts the sequence of events, attempts for help, chaos around the cockpit entrance, and expresses gratitude towards his efficient crew and medical care in UAE.
Recovering at Zayed Military Hospital in Abu Dhabi, Captain Smit Machchhar has given a detailed account of what transpired on flydubai flight FZ1073. In interviews with The National and Sky News Arabia, published on Friday evening, he recounted the violent attack by his co-pilot on the Dubai to Tel Aviv flight on 30th September.
Just before the attack, another captain travelling as deadweight crew entered the cockpit, and the two discussed their roasters, schedules, etc. Around this time, the co-pilot requested to pray. Accordingly, the other captain stepped out of the cockpit and the co-pilot started praying, positioned just behind Captain Smit.
Captain Smit was seated, checking routine information like expected landing time on his computer, “And that’s when it started,” he said. He suddenly felt a very hard hit at the back of his head. The impact was so hard that he fell forward, almost falling on his control column and he thought there was something catastrophically wrong with the aircraft structure.
But in the next couple of seconds, as the hits kept coming, he managed to glance back and realised what was going on. The person hitting him was his colleague in the cockpit, that he thought was supposed to be part of the team.
Captain Smit said that his vision had become very narrow because of the blows, restricted to just a few inches and he could only see outlines. His immediate reaction was to guard himself from further hits. He quickly unbuckled his seatbelt, turned around and tried to block the blows.
“And that’s when something flipped and I said, okay, I need to get some help in here,” he recalled. Captain Smit started screaming the other Captain’s name, tried to reach the switch to open the cockpit door and get help.
Amid the screaming and everything going on, he lost consciousness for the first time, he said. He remembers being able to open the door, there was some shouting between the other captain and the co-pilot, and the door shut immediately after this.
Barely staying conscious, Captain Smit heard the engine sounds going down and he felt the aircraft going into a dive.
Throughout this time, he was in and out of consciousness, he recalled. Smit said his memories of what happened next are still fragmented. But he remembers trying to reach the cockpit door. The next thing he remembers is lying face down between the cockpit and the galley, with the cockpit door open. He recalled a scene of panic, screaming and chaos. Several people were trying to control the situation in the cramped space around the cockpit entrance.
Captain Smit was eventually pulled out of the cockpit and the senior cabin crew member reached him and helped him.
Source:
Akashvani News
