Breaking News · October 2, 2026, 6:20 AM CDT
As reported by CNN:
Smit Machchhar, the hero Flydubai captain who fought off a savage attack by his copilot, kept fighting because he could not “let everybody else die,” he said in his first public remarks since Wednesday’s suspected hijacking attempt.
“In that moment, I was fighting for my life,” Machchhar told India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a video call on Friday.
“I was so severely wounded that I had fallen down… at that time, I was thinking what if I don’t get up?”
A horrific mid-air catastrophe on flight FZ 1073 heading to Tel Aviv was averted in a stunning turn of events on Wednesday when passengers bravely rushed into the cockpit and stand-in pilots regained control of the aircraft.
Machchhar was badly injured while trying to fend off the attacker. Images showed a gruesome scene onboard, with blood splashed across the cockpit and the seriously wounded pilot lying on the floor, his pained face partially covered with a mask.[1]
Video: CNN, October 2, 2026 — “‘I couldn’t let everybody else die,’ says hero Flydubai pilot”. Matched to this story by shared names and terms in its title; watch the original for full context.
How 5 outlets are reporting it
- ‘I couldn’t let everybody else die,’ says hero Flydubai pilot Smit Machchhar (CNN)
- ‘Couldn’t let all of them die’: Pilot attacked mid-air speaks for first time (NBC News)
- Israeli passenger says he knew what to do on flydubai plane after watching TV show (Reuters)
- Trump says Iran will be hit ‘very hard’ if it is behind copilot who tried to crash flight to Israel (AP News)
- FlyDubai captain tells India's leader how he saved himself and 173 others while fighting for his own life (CBS News)
What NBC News reports
Collapsed in a bloody heap on the floor, Captain Smit Machchhar said he knew the plane was going down and so summoned his last ounce of strength to kick the cockpit door open to let in help.
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How to Verify This Yourself
Each headline above links to that outlet’s own report. The quoted passages come from the first two of those reports that could be retrieved in full.
References
- CNN. ‘I couldn’t let everybody else die,’ says hero Flydubai pilot Smit Machchhar. ↩
- NBC News. ‘Couldn’t let all of them die’: Pilot attacked mid-air speaks for first time. ↩
Investigative methodology: this story was selected because 5 separate news organizations were reporting it at the same time. The quoted text is verbatim from the cited reports; nothing is paraphrased or added. Produced by scripts/breaking_news_monitor.py, not a language model.
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