DC Edit | No Praise Too High For Pilot Who Stopped Terror
The dentist who gave CPR to Captain Smit narrated how badly he was injured by a deadly weapon despite which he fought his Omani co-pilot resolutely leading to the plane’s flight being soon corrected from a 15,000 foot nose-diving plunge in 37 seconds that brought passengers face to face with a potentially horrendous end to their lives
No praise could be too high for the Indian pilot Smit Machchhar who played the principal heroic role in foiling what could have been Tel Aviv’s 9/11 moment in what appears to have been an attempt at a terrorist attack by the co-pilot of the FlyDubai jet. The scenes from the cockpit must have resembled a horror film on the hijacking of an airliner with 174 passengers on board.
An Israeli passenger, Yaniv Hayun, who wrestled the alleged terrorist out of the cockpit and held him for fellow passengers to subdue before righting the plane’s controls was the other hero in this midair horror. But it was captain Smit Machchhar’s presence of mind in being able to spring the lever to open the cockpit door despite being mortally wounded in an attack with the plane’s crash axe which may have helped frustrate what was clearly enough a crazed impulse to carry out a jihadi-style attack on a city.
The dentist who gave CPR to Captain Smit narrated how badly he was injured by a deadly weapon despite which he fought his Omani co-pilot resolutely leading to the plane’s flight being soon corrected from a 15,000 foot nose-diving plunge in 37 seconds that brought passengers face to face with a potentially horrendous end to their lives.
As Captain Smit recuperates in a Saudi Arabia hospital after two on-duty pilots in the passenger cabin took over the controls and passengers recover from a tryst with near death that no flier should experience, Israel, which had 169 citizens on board, can heave a sigh of relief that the event ended as it did with a fortuitous final twist as collective bravery overcame the cowardly terror plot of an individual.
The incident, which could have come straight out of the many hijacking scenarios that Hollywood script writers have drummed up over the years, is just a reminder of the perils that are permeating a world of wars, conflicts and misunderstanding. It is considered near miraculous that the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft survived the G forces in that precipitous dive.
The security scenario is such around the world that to expect the unexpected has been the norm as revenge plots abound. And Israel, with a complex history and being situated in the world’s most religiously restive zone, should know that better than many other nations.
Israel could fault the Dubai airline for using an Omani pilot whose country has no diplomatic relations with it. But this is splitting hairs since a terrorist cannot be said to come from any particular country. A 24x7 vigil against terror is the price the people of the world at war with themselves must continue to pay.
With the attack by the copilot on the pilot taking place close to the Israeli border when the plane was over Jordan was revealing of the intentions, conspiracy theories are already being manufactured. Such are the ways of a convoluted world in which tensions are commonplace enough even without big wars being waged by nations.
Unless a miracle happens and the world lurches towards genuine peace after all wars are halted, living with the threat of vengeful attacks is going to be the norm. We know we are far from resolving any one crisis, leave alone the 65 conflicts that the world is said to have been host to in 2025 with much the same scenario spilling over into 2026.
