Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi and flydubai Captain Smit Machchhar to light a celebratory flame at Israel’s next Independence Day ceremony, describing the honour as the highest conferred on that occasion and one ordinarily reserved for Israeli citizens.
The invitation was extended during a telephone conversation on Saturday, 3 October 2026, while Captain Machchhar, 38, was undergoing treatment at a hospital in the United Arab Emirates. Excerpts of the call were released by the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel.
Addressing the pilot, Netanyahu said: “Captain, I want to invite you and my dear friend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to light a celebratory flame on our next Independence Day. You are a true hero of the brave peoples of India and Israel, and you’re a hero of the entire world. I wish you a very speedy and complete recovery.”
He added that the distinction is “our highest honour that we give on our Independence Day” and is “usually reserved for Israeli citizens,” but that “in this case, all the citizens of Israel will embrace you.” Netanyahu said he was amazed by the captain’s “courage” and “coolness of judgment under impossible conditions,” and that Machchhar and those who assisted him had “saved so many souls” and, in his words, “saved the spirit of the world.”
The torch-lighting ceremony is held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem and marks the transition from Memorial Day to Independence Day. Israel’s next Independence Day falls in May 2027. No official response from the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi had been reported at the time of writing.
The 30 September cockpit attack
The conversation followed the incident aboard flydubai Flight FZ1073 on 30 September 2026. The aircraft was operating from Dubai to Tel Aviv with 174 passengers on board when the Omani co-pilot, identified in reports as Hamam al-Hammami, allegedly attacked Captain Machchhar inside the cockpit with a crash axe, an emergency tool kept in the flight deck.
According to the account Machchhar gave Netanyahu, the co-pilot had asked to pray. Out of respect, the captain looked ahead and did not turn around. After about four to five minutes, he felt a heavy blow to the back of his head. Further blows followed. Despite his injuries, he fought to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew waiting outside to enter and overpower the attacker. Reserve pilots on board then took control. The aircraft transmitted emergency signals, descended rapidly from cruising altitude, and made an emergency landing at Tabuk in Saudi Arabia.
The UAE Attorney General has described the incident as a terrorist attack and stated that the assault was planned. Reports have also said the co-pilot had earlier been barred from flying by Oman over radical views. Captain Machchhar received initial treatment in Tabuk and was later moved to a hospital in Abu Dhabi, where he has been reported to be in a stable condition.
Background of the pilot
Captain Machchhar is an Indian national of Gujarati origin. He joined flydubai as a direct-entry captain in June 2022 after nearly 11 years with SpiceJet. He is a Boeing 737 pilot with about 17 years of flying experience, including 11 years as a captain.
Prime Minister Modi had earlier spoken to him by video call and commended the decisions he took “in a fraction of a second” that helped save those on board. Netanyahu had also publicly saluted the captain in the days after the landing, crediting his actions, together with those of passengers and crew, with preventing a larger disaster.
The invitation places an Indian commercial pilot, and the Indian Prime Minister, at the centre of a ceremony that Israel treats as a national honour, and it adds a further public strand to the close political relationship between New Delhi and Jerusalem.
