Who is Captain Smit Machchhar, the hero, who saved over 170 lives onboard flydubai?

Who is Captain Smit Machchhar, the hero, who saved over 170 lives onboard flydubai?

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Oct 1, 2026: Flydubai pilot Smit Machchchar – the Mumbai man who was stabbed as he tried to stop his Omani co-pilot from taking control of Tel Aviv-bound flight FZ1073, and potentially crashing it – has been hailed as a hero for actions that likely saved over 170 lives. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his courage and quick thinking – unlocking the cockpit door despite a grievous injury, which allowed passengers to overpower the co-pilot and safely land the plane – ‘saved us from another 9/11-like incident‘. And Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu called him a ‘true hero’.

So who is Smit Machchhar?

Machchhar, who describes himself as a lifelong learner and as someone who helps others fly higher in his LinkedIn bio, has over 15 years of commercial flying experience. With a “strong focus on safety and operational excellence”, Machchhar joined flydubai in June 2022 and has been operating as a direct-entry captain. Before that, he served as the senior commander and line training captain with SpiceJet. He had flown over 9,500 hours with SpiceJet after joining the private airline in June 2011.

The captain’s family lives in Ghatkopar East, a suburb of Mumbai, Parag Shah, a local legislator from the area, told The New York Times. The captain’s parents were flown to Saudi Arabia early Thursday, Shah said.

Growing up, Machchhar had his eyes on the family’s textile business and had never imagined a career high in the skies. “Unlike a lot of other aviators right now, aviation was not a childhood dream,” Machchhar said in an interview in 2025 on a YouTube channel hosted by Zalak Mehta. “It came along much later in my life.”

He had enrolled in a textile engineering course and later pursued management studies at Mumbai’s Welingkar Institute of Management. Later, it was during an aviation seminar that he discovered flying and “that’s where the aviation bug … really found me,” he said, adding that his mother was initially scared of the career choice.

“The aviation now and 15 to 17 years ago was completely different,” he said. “You didn’t hear a lot of people becoming pilots, no one had any idea how to do it. So first of all, that was something that scared my mom — and of course, the flying bit.”

He was trained in New Zealand and joined SpiceJet. He had recalled having to divert flights for medical emergencies and delay departures over seemingly minor technical issues. “Delay is not my problem. As long as you’re walking out of the aircraft is what I want,” he said.

Machchhar prefers to keep aviation separate from his personal life. “When I get out of the cockpit or the aircraft, I don’t want the other guy to know that I’m a pilot,” he said. “I don’t want to discuss aviation. When I wear the uniform, then no nonsense and just do your job, finish the job. When you walk out of the cockpit, that’s it. Stop thinking about that. Someone else needs you now. The kids are there. They want to play with you.”

What happened on flydubai flight FZ1073

After the stabbing incident, an alleged attempt to crash the plane, the jet plunged nearly 14,000 feet (4,267 m), and passengers, who entered through the cockpit door overpowered the attacker and other pilots onboard rushed into the cockpit; eventually, the aircraft made an emergency landing at Tabuk airport, in northwestern Saudi Arabia. While Machchhar’s condition is stable and he has been admitted to a hospital in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk, the identity and motive of his attacker, the copilot, remain unknown and Israeli authorities are probing the matter, Israeli officials were quoted by Reuters as saying.