Flydubai Pilot to the Prime Minister of India: I Opened the Cockpit Door During the Attack

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The Indian pilot who was attacked during the Flydubai flight incident on Wednesday told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he opened the cockpit door during the attack, according to a video released by the Prime Minister's office on Friday.

Pilot Smit Machhar said he opened the cockpit door while on the ground and was being attacked by his assistant on flight FZ 1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv. Machhar told the Prime Minister of India: "I couldn't let all the passengers die."

Indian Captain Smit Machhar, who managed to open the cockpit door despite being injured, which allowed for the rescue of the plane, was transferred from Saudi Arabia to the UAE on Thursday, where the Indian embassy in Abu Dhabi announced that he is "in good health and recovering well."

Two days after the Flydubai plane made an emergency landing at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia during a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, with 174 passengers on board including 166 Israelis according to media reports, the motives of the attacker remain unclear.

According to the passengers' account, the co-pilot stabbed the captain in an attempt to bring down the plane, which descended five thousand meters in one minute. However, the captain managed to open the cockpit door despite his injury, allowing passengers to enter the cockpit and subdue the attacker.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Thursday with a "very strong blow" if its involvement in the attack on the Flydubai flight commander during the journey to Tel Aviv is confirmed, adding that he leans towards this hypothesis.

Trump stated that the Iranians "will receive a very strong blow," in response to a reporter's question about whether the United States would retaliate if Tehran's responsibility was proven.

Without waiting for the results of the ongoing investigations, Israel condemned the "attempted terrorist attack."

Flydubai suspended its flights to and from Tel Aviv following the thwarted attack.

During a chat with journalists at the White House, Trump said he believes Iran is involved in the operation, explaining, "I say the answer is yes, based on what I hear, but we are working on this matter at this very moment."

In the first information provided regarding the attack on the plane, Saudi authorities confirmed on Thursday that "an assault on the plane's captain by his assistant occurred," based on preliminary investigation results.

They indicated that the suspect was transferred to the United Arab Emirates, where the Attorney General announced the opening of an investigation into the incident "to verify its connection to any terrorist activity or purpose, or the existence of prior planning or direction for it," according to what the official Emirates News Agency "WAM" reported on Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the attacker, who is of Omani nationality, "underwent a process of extremist ideological indoctrination," as he put it, although he did not rule out the possibility that he may be suffering from psychological disorders.

Many Israeli newspapers published on their front pages on Thursday a picture of Yaniv Hayoun, the plumber who recounted that he pulled the attacker out of the cockpit and then grabbed the control stick, successfully correcting the plane's course thanks to what he had seen on television programs.