Captain of flydubai plane describes blocking axe blows as co-pilot attacked

Oct 18 The captain of a flydubai flight who was attacked by a co-pilot who intended to crash the plane has described blocking axe blows to the head and screaming for help as he reached ​for a knob to open the cockpit door. Captain Smit Machchhar has ‌been hailed as a hero for his role in averting disaster on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv last month, helping to thwart what the UAE attorney general has said was an attempted suicide attack by the co-pilot who intended to crash the plane into Ben ‌Gurion ​Airport. Speaking in an interview with The National newspaper ⁠from a hospital bed in Abu ⁠Dhabi, his head and left arm bandaged, Machchhar said that when the first blow landed, he thought something had gone horribly wrong the aircraft structure , before quickly realising he was being attacked and things had taken a drastic turn . The next ​thought was I need to get help in here, he said in the interview published on Saturday. My immediate action was to free myself from the sea