HeroCaptain Smit Machchhar, SavedThe Plane and Passengers after Being Injured w.Hatchet
A photograph provided by the Israeli government shows Smit Machchhar, an Indian pilot, in an undated handout image released on Wednesday. Credit... Israel Foreign Ministry, via Reuters By Somini Sengupta Suhasini Raj and Mujib Mashal Somini Sengupta reported from the Mumbai suburb where the pilot grew up New York Times Capt. Smit Machchhar, the Indian pilot hailed for averting a catastrophe on a FlyDubai flight, had faced a few challenges in the cockpit before. Monsoon rains. Fast-changing wind speeds. And the biggest challenge of all, he recalled on a podcast last year: preparing to land after a passenger went into labor on board. “There was a sense of urgency,” he said. “In my head, I had zero margin of error.” None compared to the bloody midair horror he found himself in on Wednesday, when witnesses and officials say a fellow pilot stabbed him in the cockpit of a Dubai to Tel Aviv flight on Wednesday. Mr. Machchhar, bleeding, managed to open th...