"I could not let the rest die": speaks the pilot who avoided the tragedy on the flight to Tel-Aviv

BarcelonaHe has been described as a "hero" in both India and Israel. Smit Machchhar is the Indian commander who on Wednesday was sharing the cockpit with the pilot who allegedly attempted to crash a plane flying the route between Dubai and Tel Aviv. This Friday, he spoke for the first time after having saved more than 170 lives on Wednesday—when his own life was also in danger, after his cockpit colleague had stabbed him—with a simple gesture: opening a door.

"I knew the plane was going down. It was on the ground. I told myself that the door was right there, that I just had to open it. I managed to do it and the people entered," he recounted in a video call from the hospital with his country's prime minister, Narendra Modi.

The plane lost altitude very rapidly. It went from flying at 34,000 feet to flying at 16,000 in less than two minutes, after Machchhar's colleague stabbed him and took control of the flight. With Machchhar seriously wounded, his managing to open the cockpit door changed everything. "Other people entered who helped to control the situation. I, of course, was fighting for my own life, but at the same time I knew I could not let the rest die."

Between him and five other passengers, they managed to subdue the attacker and take control of the plane, which ended up landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. There, in a hospital in that same city, Machchhar was admitted as soon as he landed. He is now stable and still recovering from the wounds from the incident.

On board the flight was an Israeli doctor, Shota Musaieb, who assisted Machchhar. On Tuesday, upon arriving in Tel Aviv, Musaieb stated that he had feared for Machchhar's life. "I feared losing him because he was losing consciousness and his pulse was very low," he recounted. "He had lost a lot of blood. He had stab wounds on his face and hand, to the point that a little more and it would have been cut in two," the doctor added.

In the video call with Modi, Mechchhar explains that he has been flying for seventeen years, and has been piloting planes for eleven. Based on his accumulated experience, he assures that he can "know what is happening to the plane even with his eyes closed." In fact, when he realized the aircraft was losing altitude abruptly, he was already lying on the ground after his colleague's assault.

With a nasal cannula with oxygen and his head bandaged, Mechchhar appears in the video convinced that he will soon recover. "I don't look at the wounds I have as wounds, because that would make my recovery even more difficult. I look at them as a journey that is advancing little by little and that will take time, but I am convinced that I will recover and will return to being fit and healthy," he predicts.