Israel to Honour Indian Pilot Smit Machchhar With Its Highest Civilian Bravery Award

12 October 2026National

Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced that Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian pilot flying for flydubai, will receive the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism - Israel's highest civilian bravery honour - for resisting a mid-flight cockpit attack by his co-pilot and saving 174 passengers and crew. The co-pilot, an Omani national, allegedly attacked him with a crash axe. Machchhar has over 9,750 flying hours on Boeing aircraft and spent over 11 years at SpiceJet as Senior Commander and Line Training Captain before joining flydubai in June 2022. Instituted after the 7 October 2023 attack, the award rarely goes to a foreign national.

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Isaac Herzog has been President of Israel since July 2021; the President is elected by the Knesset for a single seven-year term | Israel's currency is the Israeli new shekel and its seat of government is Jerusalem | flydubai is a Dubai government-owned low-cost carrier launched in 2009

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