The pilot who fought off his co-pilot who stabbed him during an attempted midair attack on a flight to Israel has been named as Captain Smit Machchhar.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Cpt Machchhar, an Indian national, as a “true hero” for fighting back against the attacker and opening the cockpit door during the commercial flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv.

“My salute to the Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar for his extraordinary bravery,” Netanyahu posted on X. “Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker.”

The attack unfolded on Wednesday morning, roughly two and a half hours into Flydubai Flight FZ1073.

As the Boeing 737 crossed into Jordanian airspace, Machchhar’s co-pilot launched a knife attack inside the cockpit and attempted to sabotage the flight controls to crash the airliner, officials said. The aircraft plunged an extraordinary 14,000 feet in less than 30 seconds.

Despite bleeding heavily after sustaining multiple severe stab wounds, Israeli officials said Cpt Machchhar was able to hit the cockpit’s door release mechanism before collapsing.

Several passengers then charged forward to breach the unlocked flight deck, joining crew members to physically restrain the attacker on the floor.

“My daughter heard screaming and saw a man with a knife put the pilot on the floor, with blood everywhere,” said passenger Yasmin Abu Kasis. “The plane started to lose control, so all the people were screaming.”

Meital, a passenger whose husband attempted to help, told Israel’s Channel 12: “There were stabbings and a lot of blood. My husband rushed to the front of the plane, and … neutralised the terrorist.”

Another passenger, Almog Itali, said an off-duty British pilot helped to rescue the plane and executed an emergency landing at Tabuk Airport in northeastern Saudi Arabia.

In a short translated clip on the BBC, Mr Itali said: “There were two pilots in the front, one stabbed the other, and there were two spare pilots who were supposed to operate the next flight.

“The relief pilots are European, one of them British, who entered (the cockpit) and pulled the aircraft up, pulled the yoke, stabilised the plane and landed us in Saudi Arabia.”

Local authorities arrested the suspect on the tarmac immediately after touchdown. Both pilots were then hospitalised in Tabuk, where the Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia has since confirmed Machchhar underwent emergency surgery and is in stable condition.

Netanyahu added that Machchhar “saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals,” wishing him a full recovery.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described the incident as an attempted “jihadist terrorist attack” and said the suspect intended to crash the plane with everyone on board.

In response, Netanyahu has ordered security services to immediately tighten screening protocols across all domestic and international carriers entering Israeli airspace.

The 174 passengers were later flown from Tabuk to Ben Gurion Airport on a replacement aircraft sent by Flydubai, where they were reunited with emotional family members late Wednesday evening.

The Israeli prime minister personally met with several of the returning passengers on the tarmac at Ben Gurion, praising their courage and thanking them for intervening.

Flydubai has confirmed that formal investigations into the attacker’s underlying motives remain ongoing.