NEW DELHI: SpiceJet, the Gurugram-based budget carrier and former employer of Captain Smit Machchhar, on Thursday praised the pilot after he was stabbed by his co-pilot aboard an Israel-bound flight but managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to enter and overpower the attacker.Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh said that “all of India and SpiceJet” is “incredibly proud of him.”“I was incredibly proud to know of this, but this is the job of a pilot. His job is to protect the lives that have been entrusted to him. And in this case, 180 lives were entrusted to Captain Smit Machchhar, and he did a tremendous job saving and preserving those lives. So really incredibly proud of him. All of SpiceJet is proud of him, and of course, all of India is proud of him,” Singh told ANI.“The first thing that will go through a pilot’s mind is preserving lives, saving lives. And remember that in this case, what really saved lives was the fact that he was able to open the door of that cockpit, and let me tell you that the handle which allows that door to be opened is actually on the co-pilot’s side. So, it would have needed real courage, after being stabbed, to reach out to the co-pilot side and somehow find a way to unlatch that door. So the fact that he was able to do it essentially saved those lives because then passengers and other pilots were able to come into the cockpit and help him overpower the co-pilot and fly the plane back,” he added.The captain was also able to activate the cockpit door emergency release mechanism, communicate with the crew on board and send an emergency communication signal.“The mechanics are that the cabin crew or anybody on the outside can punch a code in that door. But the door still doesn’t open. It needs the captain to physically unlock the door. And that unlocking mechanism is actually on the side of the co-pilot. In this case, the co-pilot was actually attacking the captain, and he still managed to reach out and find a way to unlock that door. And that is possibly what saved lives,” the SpiceJet chairman and managing director said.
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Machchhar, who spent 11 years with SpiceJet, has more than 13 years of commercial aviation experience and has logged 9,750 flying hours, primarily operating Boeing 737 aircraft. He later joined UAE-based airline flydubai, where he currently serves.On Wednesday, the flight was en route from Dubai to Israel’s Tel Aviv when Machchhar was stabbed by the co-pilot, reportedly an Omani national. The flight was later diverted to Saudi Arabia’s Tabluk, where it made an emergency landing. Around 180 passengers, mostly Israelis, were on board.Machchhar is currently recovering at a hospital in the kingdom and is in stable condition, according to the Indian Embassy in Riyadh.
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