Bleeding on the cockpit floor, Captain Smit Machchhar could feel the aircraft plunging. It was September 30, and flydubai Flight FZ1073 was carrying 174 passengers from Dubai to Tel Aviv. Beyond the locked cockpit door, the passengers had little idea of the desperate struggle unfolding just metres away. Beside Machchhar was the very man who should have been helping him fly the Boeing 737, his co-pilot.
Machchhar had only seconds to act. Moments earlier, the co-pilot had attacked him. Israeli authorities allege that he then attempted to crash the aircraft, although investigators in the United Arab Emirates are still working to establish exactly what happened and why. The descent was terrifyingly fast. The Boeing lost nearly 14,000 feet, more than four kilometres of altitude, in less than 30 seconds.
Badly wounded, Machchhar understood that nobody could save the plane unless the locked cockpit door was opened. So he dragged himself to the mechanism and opened it. Outside, the transponder told its own story. At about 05:28 GMT, tracking data showed the emergency code 7700. Minutes later it changed to 7500, the signal for unlawful interference, usually tied to hijackings. Who selected each code has not been made public. Israeli fighter jets were sent toward what looked like a hijacked plane bound for Israel. They never had to act.
The plumber who grabbed the controls
Behind the cockpit door was chaos. A woman screamed that someone had been stabbed. Yaniv Hayoun, 50, who owns a sewage pumping company in Israel, was travelling with his wife and two daughters. He ran towards the cockpit. Hayoun grabbed the attacker, locked an arm around his neck and helped pull him away as other passengers joined the struggle. With the aircraft still diving, he then grabbed the controls and pulled back. He had never been trained to fly. Two flydubai pilots travelling aboard soon took control and eventually landed safely at Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. All 174 people aboard survived.
Meanwhile, from his hospital bed in Abu Dhabi, Captain Smit Machchhar told Prime Minister Narendra Modi how he had forced himself towards the cockpit door despite his injuries. Modi hailed him as a hero.
Surviving the impossible: Aviation’s greatest stories of survival
1. The cockpit battle at 30,000 feet
Three decades before the attack on Captain Smit Machchhar, another cockpit became a battlefield. In 1994, FedEx employee Auburn Calloway attacked the three-man crew of Flight 705 with hammers, leaving them severely wounded. First Officer James Tucker responded by throwing the massive DC-10 into extraordinary rolls, steep dives and high-G manoeuvres, repeatedly knocking the attacker off balance while his colleagues fought him. The crew eventually subdued Calloway and turned back towards Memphis. Somehow, they landed safely. All three survived.
2. Miracle on the Hudson
Minutes after taking off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport on January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canada geese, disabling both engines. With few options and little time, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger glided the Airbus A320 onto the icy Hudson River. Remarkably, all 155 people aboard survived. The extraordinary feat became known as the “Miracle on the Hudson” and inspired Clint Eastwood’s 2016 film Sully, starring Tom Hanks as the celebrated captain.
3. The Captain who flew outside the cockpit
At 17,000 feet on June 10, 1990, a windscreen panel on British Airways Flight 5390 suddenly blew out. The explosive decompression dragged Captain Tim Lancaster partly through the opening, leaving him pinned outside the cockpit as the aircraft raced through the sky. Flight attendant Nigel Ogden grabbed Lancaster and refused to let go. First Officer Alastair Atchison took control and made an emergency landing at Southampton. Against extraordinary odds, Lancaster survived, suffering fractures, frostbite and shock, and later returned to flying.
4. The plane that survived a missile
On November 22, 2003, a missile slammed into a DHL Airbus A300 climbing out of Baghdad, setting its wing ablaze and destroying all three hydraulic systems. Captain Eric Gennotte, First Officer Steeve Michielsen and Flight Engineer Mario Rofail suddenly had virtually no conventional flight controls. They improvised, steering and managing altitude by adjusting thrust between the two engines. Against extraordinary odds, they wrestled the crippled freighter back to Baghdad. It veered off the runway after touchdown, but all three crew members walked away alive.
5. When a volcano silenced all four engines
At 37,000 feet over Indonesia in 1982, volcanic ash from Mount Galunggung choked all four engines of British Airways Flight 009. The Boeing 747 became a giant glider carrying 263 people. Then Captain Eric Moody made aviation’s famously calm announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped.” As the aircraft descended, the crew repeatedly attempted restarts. The engines finally returned to life. Despite an ash blasted windscreen, they landed safely in Jakarta. Everyone survived.
6. The glider pilot who saved a Boeing 767
At 41,000 feet in 1983, Air Canada Flight 143 ran completely out of fuel after a metric conversion error. Both engines died, turning the Boeing 767 into a massive glider. Fortunately, Captain Robert Pearson was an experienced glider pilot. Unable to reach Winnipeg, he aimed for an abandoned airbase at Gimli. Approaching too high, Pearson used a dramatic sideslip, a manoeuvre familiar to glider pilots, to shed altitude. The aircraft touched down on a former drag strip. All 69 aboard survived.
Quot
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Hayoun how he knew what to do. His answer was remarkable: “I watch Air Crash Investigation, Mr Prime Minister,” referring to the popular television documentary series that reconstructs real aviation disasters and emergencies, explaining what went wrong and how pilots and investigators responded.
Netanyahu embraced him and later even posted a five-star recommendation for his plumbing services.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
