Behind the closed cockpit door of flydubai flight FZ1073, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv on 30 September, 2026, Captain Smit Machchhar lay wounded on the floor while the jet lost more than 14,000 feet in 29 seconds, according to Flightradar24 data.

Israeli officials say his co-pilot had stabbed him and tried to crash the aircraft, which carried about 174 people.

From the floor, Machchhar reached the door release, and the door he opened let passengers and crew rush in and overpower the attacker. His act is the latest in a long line of Indian pilots who have pulled passengers back from the brink, and five such cases show how different those moments can be.

A wounded captain opens the cockpit door

Passenger Shota Musaev, a dentist, told CNN that he found the attacker on top of the pilot, still stabbing him, and he helped treat Machchhar, whose blood pressure had plummeted. The jet landed safely at Tabuk in Saudi Arabia, and Machchhar underwent surgery and is stable, according to the Indian Embassy in Riyadh.

Several world leaders have praised his courage and presence of mind, while flydubai has called the incident an altercation, and authorities are still establishing the facts.

Machchhar, a 39-year-old father of two from Mumbai, was expected to join his family's textile business until he developed a passion for aviation at 19.

He trained in Dunedin, New Zealand, where his instructor Philip Kean remembered a jovial young man who tried hard, and he then spent 11 years at SpiceJet, rising to Line Training Captain with more than 9,500 hours, before joining flydubai in June 2022.

A burning engine after take-off from Patna

The airline where Machchhar spent those 11 years faced its own crisis on 19 June, 2022, when an engine caught fire soon after SpiceJet Boeing 737 flight SG723 left Patna for Delhi with 185 passengers.

Captain Monica Khanna switched off the affected engine without delay,........

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