DUBAI: The captain of a flydubai flight whose co-pilot attacked him with an axe in an alleged bid to bring down the plane said one thought kept running through his head as the harrowing ordeal unfolded: "You can't die like this."
Indian pilot Smit Machchhar recounted the "traumatic" experience to Sky News Arabia in his first interview since the incident late last month in which he, passengers and other crew members were credited with averting disaster on the Tel Aviv-bound flight.
With his head and one hand bandaged and glasses perched on his nose, Machchhar spoke from his hospital bed in the UAE.
"My vision was restricted to a few inches," said the pilot, describing the effect of being struck in the back of the head with an emergency axe by his co-pilot, who had positioned himself behind Machchhar's seat.
