Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, described opening the cockpit door while wounded and under attack, allowing passengers and crew to intervene. “I was being assaulted at that time; I just opened the door and all the others came; all of them too had an equal role,” he said during a video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Additional Flydubai pilots aboard the aircraft landed it safely. The jet lost key tail sections during its plunge, but its structure largely held up, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Both pilots were transferred to Abu Dhabi after medical clearance. The co-pilot, identified by sources as Omani national Hamam al-Hammami, had previously been banned from flying by Oman over concerns about radical ideological views, the Wall Street Journal reported. Flydubai subsequently hired him and assigned him to the Israel route. The airline has suspended Tel Aviv operations until further notice at the authorities’ request and says the circumstances remain under investigation.