Flydubai captain recounts axe attack by first officer, says he doubted he would survive

ABU DHABI: The captain of a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv has said he was not sure he would survive when the first officer attacked him with an axe during the flight.

The captain, Sumit Machhar, an Indian national, tried to block the blows aimed at his head with his arm and kept shouting for help during the attack.

According to Reuters, the captain said in an interview with the newspaper The National at a hospital in Abu Dhabi that after the first blow he initially thought a serious structural fault had developed in the aircraft. He soon realised he was being attacked.

According to the captain, he immediately tried to undo his seat belt and kept warding off the blows to protect himself. The attacker’s blows were coming towards his head, and his arm was also injured as he defended himself.

He reached for the knob to open the cockpit door and kept calling his colleagues for help. He then lost consciousness.

The incident took place on a flydubai flight that was in Saudi Arabian airspace at the time. According to the report, the aircraft dropped about 16,000 feet in just 30 seconds as a result of the attack.

The two other pilots and the crew on board later overpowered the attacker and landed the aircraft safely in Saudi Arabia.