Who is Captain Smit Machchhar, the ‘hero’, who saved over 170 lives onboard flydubai?

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Captain Smit Machchhar. Photo: Reuters

Profile · flydubai FZ1073

Smit Machchhar: From textile engineering to the flydubai cockpit

How an unexpected interest in aviation took a Mumbai engineering student from a planned career in textiles to nearly 9,750 hours in the cockpit

Captain Smit Machchhar

• Indian national
• From Mumbai
• Boeing 737 captain
• Former SpiceJet pilot
• Joined flydubai in 2022
• Career of about 15 years

~9,750flying hours, nearly

The journey

From the classroom to the cockpit

1. 
2. 

   Textile engineering

   Studies to join the family textile business

3. 

   Age 19: discovers aviation

   At a seminar during management studies, Welingkar Institute, Mumbai

4. 

   Pilot training

   New Zealand

5. 

   SpiceJet: 11 years

   Rises to line training captain

6. 

   flydubai: 2022

   Boeing 737 captain

7. 

   ~9,750 flying hours

   Over a career of about 15 years

8. 

   FZ1073: Sept 30, 2026

   Injured in a cockpit altercation

He was originally headed for textiles

He studied textile engineering and expected to join his family’s textile business. At 19, an aviation seminar during his management studies at Mumbai’s Welingkar Institute changed his direction.

1. Textile engineering
2. Aviation seminar
3. Pilot training · New Zealand
4. Commercial pilot

“Unlike a lot of other aviators right now, aviation was not a childhood dream. It came along much later in my life.”

Smit Machchhar, in an earlier interview, as quoted by Reuters

11 years

at SpiceJet

• Rose to line training captain
• Responsible for mentoring younger pilots

~9,750

flying hours, nearly

• Joined flydubai in 2022, flying the Boeing 737
• About four years with the Dubai airline

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Close to 10,000 hours: more than 400 days in the air

A potential catastrophe was averted

Each dot is one person on board

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174people on board

Machchhar’s actions were credited by Israeli officials with helping prevent a potential catastrophe.

Illustration: 174 dots, not the actual seating plan

Safe landing in Saudi Arabia

Machchhar was taken to hospital in Tabuk

Indian Embassy, Riyadh

He is admitted to a hospital in Tabuk and receiving treatment, and is stable according to initial reports. The embassy says it is in touch with his family.

PM Narendra Modi

“Captain Smit Machchhar is a HERO… India is proud of Captain Machchhar.” Modi said his actions “helped save hundreds of lives and avert a great tragedy”.

From a textile engineering classroom to a Boeing 737 cockpit, Smit Machchhar’s unexpected aviation journey took a dramatic turn aboard FZ1073.

Sources: Reuters; Indian Embassy in Riyadh; PM Narendra Modi on X; flydubai. Investigation ongoing.

Express InfoGenIE

The captain’s family lives in Ghatkopar East, a suburb of Mumbai, Parag Shah, a local legislator from the area, told The New York Times. The captain’s parents were flown to Saudi Arabia early Thursday, Shah said.

Growing up, Machchhar had his eyes on the family’s textile business and had never imagined a career high in the skies. “Unlike a lot of other aviators right now, aviation was not a childhood dream,” Machchhar said in an interview in 2025 on a YouTube channel hosted by Zalak Mehta. “It came along much later in my life.”

Flydubai pilot Smit Machchhar. (Source: Screenshot/ interview)

He had enrolled in a textile engineering course and later pursued management studies at Mumbai’s Welingkar Institute of Management. Later, it was during an aviation seminar that he discovered flying and “that’s where the aviation bug … really found me,” he said, adding that his mother was initially scared of the career choice.

“The aviation now and 15 to 17 years ago was completely different,” he said. “You didn’t hear a lot of people becoming pilots, no one had any idea how to do it. So first of all, that was something that scared my mom — and of course, the flying bit.”

He was trained in New Zealand and joined SpiceJet. He had recalled having to divert flights for medical emergencies and delay departures over seemingly minor technical issues. “Delay is not my problem. As long as you’re walking out of the aircraft is what I want,” he said.

Machchhar prefers to keep aviation separate from his personal life. “When I get out of the cockpit or the aircraft, I don’t want the other guy to know that I’m a pilot,” he said. “I don’t want to discuss aviation. When I wear the uniform, then no nonsense and just do your job, finish the job. When you walk out of the cockpit, that’s it. Stop thinking about that. Someone else needs you now. The kids are there. They want to play with you.”

What happened on flydubai flight FZ1073

After the stabbing incident, an alleged attempt to crash the plane, the jet plunged nearly 14,000 feet (4,267 m), and passengers, who entered through the cockpit door overpowered the attacker and other pilots onboard rushed into the cockpit; eventually, the aircraft made an emergency landing at Tabuk airport, in northwestern Saudi Arabia. While Machchhar’s condition is stable and he has been admitted to a hospital in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk, the identity and motive of his attacker, the copilot, remain unknown and Israeli authorities are probing the matter, Israeli officials were quoted by Reuters as saying.

With inputs from Reuters, AP, New York Times