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"I was, of course, fighting for my own life but at the same time I knew I was not going to let others die," Captain Smit Machchhar said.
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We're hearing for the first time from the fly Dubai captain who was badly injured fighting
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off his co-pilot as their passenger jet plunged toward the ground Wednesday
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In a video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this morning, Captain Smit Machar
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described the moment he was on the cockpit floor, severely wounded and still being attacked
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The plane was rapidly losing altitude and Machar said he knew he had to get back up
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He told Modi, I was fighting for my life, but said he also knew he couldn't let everybody else die
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Machar managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to rush in and subdue the co-pilot
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Reserve pilots on board then helped regain control of the jet. The flight, headed from Dubai to Tel Aviv, made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia with 174 people on board
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The suspect, Anamani National, was questioned there before being transferred to the United Arab Emirates
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Investigators are still working to determine a motive and whether the attack had any connection to terrorism
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President Trump was asked Thursday whether the suspect could have ties to Iran
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First of all, has anybody briefed you about whether or not the guy, the pilot of the Fly Dubai plane is linked to Iran
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We're working on it right now. They're being very open with us
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I would say the answer based on what I'm hearing is yes, but we're working on it right now
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This guy might have been either put in there by the IRGT or radicalized some other way
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And then he tried to take down the plane. It could have been, yeah. No Iran connection has been established
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Machar is now recovering at a hospital in Abu Dhabi after suffering what a passenger who treated him described as massive blood loss
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