Mumbai, Indian pilot Smit Machchhar, being hailed as a hero for foiling an attempt by his co-pilot to crash an Israel-bound flydubai flight, has said he did not want to go down without a fight and so put in all he had to open the cockpit door from the inside.
“It began as a normal flight. The co-pilot wanted to pray, which a lot of locals do and which is not out of the ordinary. “Suddenly, after I think I would say about four or five minutes, there was a big blow to the back of my head. “I had that one last fight left in me. Call it personal or call it for the people, but I thought that if I don’t do it, I am going to die. And that is when I pushed against everything. I gave everything that I had and just went for the door and opened the door. “From the outside, it can only be opened with a code. “The only way to open the door was to reach the knob to twist it open.
Because of the initial blows, his vision was blurred, machchhar said he tried to stop the co-pilot, but.
My first thought was that there was a catastrophic damage to the aircraft and something is not right,” he said. And thankfully, people were waiting to pounce back, took over the control,” he said. The cockpit door has a twist from the inside, the pilot said. My colleagues from outside were trying to punch in the code but the guy was not allowing to open the code,” he said. It was a short quick twist but once I had my hands on the knob, I guess I twisted it and opened it,” Machchhar said.
out of respect, I was just looking at the front and not at the back,” Machchhar told Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call on Saturday While he was praying.
