Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited the Indian Flydubai captain to Israel, praising him as a “true hero” of the peoples of India, Israel and the wider world.
This combo image shows Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference with US President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 4, 2025, and Indian pilot Smit Machchhar, the captain of flydubai flight FZ 1073. (Photo by – / ISRAEL’S FOREIGN MINISTRY/ Jim WATSON / AFP)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday invited to Israel, as a guest of honour, the Indian captain of a Tel Aviv-bound flydubai flight who saved the plane by opening the cockpit after being attacked.
“You are a true hero of the brave peoples of India and Israel, and you are a hero of the entire world,” Netanyahu said in a video his office released of his telephone conversation with Captain Smit Machchhar.
The UAE’s attorney general on Saturday said the co-pilot of a flydubai flight to Israel had planned a “terrorist act” and used the cockpit’s emergency axe to attack the captain, the official UAE news agency WAM reported.
The agency quoted Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi as saying that according to the initial findings of an investigation, “the co-pilot had attempted to carry out a terrorist act” and had “attacked the captain in the cockpit with the emergency axe and tried to take control of the aircraft”.
One of the pilots of the Israel-bound flydubai flight diverted on Wednesday attacked his co-pilot and tried to crash the plane to kill everyone, a passenger said.
More to follow…
