Before Smit Machchhar, There Was Neerja Bhanot: Story Of 2 Aviation Heroes

Smit Machchhar faced an unprecedented crisis as the pilot of flydubai Flight FZ1073 on Wednesday. The flight was carrying 174 people, when a violent altercation broke out inside the cockpit with his co-pilot. Machchhar survived and was taken to a hospital after the plane landed in Saudi Arabia. Four decades earlier, Neerja Bhanot did not. Both found themselves facing danger inside an aircraft, and both put the lives of passengers before their own.

On September 5, 1986, Bhanot was the senior flight purser aboard Pan Am Flight 73, which had landed in Karachi during its journey from Mumbai to Frankfurt and New York. Four armed men hijacked the Boeing 747, beginning a 17-hour ordeal involving hundreds of passengers and crew.

The Pan Am flight was on its way from Mumbai to New York.
Photo Credit: Representative Pic/Getty Images

Bhanot was among the first to realise what was happening. She alerted the cockpit crew using the hijack code, allowing the pilots to escape through the cockpit hatch and preventing the hijackers from taking the aircraft into the air and saving the lives of 350 passengers onboard. She then assumed responsibility for the passengers and crew on board.

During the rescue operation, she was shot while shielding three children from the gunfire. It happened two days before her 23rd birthday. Bhanot was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra in 1987, becoming the youngest and first woman recipient of the country's highest peacetime gallantry award.

On September 30, 2026, Machchhar faced a similar situation and fought for the lives of passengers.

Captain Machchhar's co-pilot attacked and stabbed him and attempted to interfere with the aircraft's controls. The Boeing 737 subsequently went into a steep descent.

Passengers from flydubai flight FZ1073 getting down from the aircraft.
Photo Credit: AFP

Despite being injured, Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to enter and help restrain the attacker. The aircraft was diverted to Tabuk in Saudi Arabia, where Machchhar was taken to hospital. All passengers survived.

Both the incidents show when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Separated 40 years apart, the instinct at the centre of both stories was remarkably similar: When an aircraft became a place of extraordinary danger, two Indian aviation professionals acted to protect the people entrusted to them.