Weeks after Indian pilot Smit Machchhar fought off an attack by his Omani copilot on a Dubai-Tel Avivi flydubai flight, the identities of two off-duty pilots who took charge of the flight amid the chaos have been revealed.
Pilots Henson Steven of Fiji and Rowan Tooth of South Africa took control of the plane after Smit Machcchhar was attacked by his co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami, who was trying to crash the plane, according to a Times of Israel report. “The plane started leveling out a little more, and then the pilot told me he was taking over from there,” Israeli passenger Yaniv Hayun had said. The off-duty pilots were on board to prepare for the possibility that regional airspace restrictions could force the aircraft to take a longer route, according to a Jerusalem Post report published last month. The additional pilots were there to ensure the crew did not exceed its permitted duty hours, the report had said, citing a person familiar with the matter.
The flydubai crew members were awarded the First Class Order of Zayed II by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan earlier this week but their identities were not known until then. An Israeli passenger briefly grabbed controls of the flight before the off-duty co-pilots took over.
