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Flydubai Scare & Captain Smit Machchhar: From miracle on the Hudson to Gimli glider, a look at 10 greatest emergency landings in aviation history
The Hudson (above) and Flight Dubai Landing.
Captain Smit Machchhar prevented a catastrophic aviation disaster on September 30 through an act of immense physical courage. Despite being severely stabbed and incapacitated by his co-pilot, he managed to execute the single most critical task required to save the 174 passengers and 6 crew members aboard: he unlocked the cockpit door.
A look at 10 greatest emergency landings in aviation history.
HOW CAPTAIN MACHCHHAR SAVED THE FLIGHT
While flying Flydubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel AvivCaptain Machchhar was suddenly ambushed by his Omani co-pilot, who attempted to intentionally crash the Boeing 737 MAX 8. As the co-pilot pushed the controls forward, sending the plane into a terrifying plunge of 14,000 to 17,000 feet in under 30 seconds, a violent struggle ensued.
Severely wounded and bleeding profusely on the cockpit floor, Machchhar used his remaining strength to reach up and trigger the electronic cockpit door release switch.
Hearing screams and feeling the violent dive, several passengers and cabin crew rushed to the cockpit. Because the captain was slouched against the door due to his injuries, they had to forcefully push it open, immediately subduing the attacker and pulling him away from the flight controls.
With the attacker subdued, the physical landing of the aircraft was completed safely by two off-duty Flydubai pilots who happened to be travelling as passengers on the flight. World leaders, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, heavily praised Captain Machchhar’s “extraordinary bravery,” noting that his split-second decision to unlock the door averted a 9/11-style disaster.
10 GREATEST EMERGENCY LANDINGS IN AVIATION HISTORY
1. US Airways Flight 1549: “The Miracle on the Hudson” (2009)
Just moments after departing New York’s LaGuardia Airportan Airbus A320 struck a flock of Canada geese, instantly destroying both engines. Recognizing the plane was too low and slow to reach any runway, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles glided the aircraft onto the freezing Hudson River. All 155 people on board survived the textbook water ditching.
2. Air Canada Flight 143: “The Gimli Glider” (1983)
Due to a metric conversion error during refueling, a brand-new Boeing 767 ran entirely out of fuel at 41,000 feet over Canada. Captain Robert Pearson, an experienced glider pilot, used a gravity-defying “sideslip” maneuver to rapidly lose altitude without gaining dangerous airspeed. He wrestled the dead-stick airliner down onto a decommissioned military runway in Gimli, Manitoba—unaware that a crowd was using it for a sports car race day. Everyone survived without serious injury.
3. TACA Flight 110: The Levee Landing (1988)
While descending into New Orleansa Boeing 737 flew through a severe thunderstorm. Heavy hail and water ingestion caused a simultaneous flameout of both engines. Captain Carlos Dárdano, who had previously lost an eye in a civil war conflict, broke through the low clouds to find water and swamp beneath them. Spotting a narrow, grass-covered NASA industrial levee, he skillfully glided and landed the aircraft flat on the grass strip. All 45 people survived completely uninjured, and the plane was so undamaged that engineers repaired it on-site and flew it off the levee weeks later.
4. DHL Baghdad Missile Strike: Flying with Just Engines (2003)
Shortly after takeoff from Baghdad, an Airbus A300 cargo jet was struck by a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile, tearing off a section of the left wing and completely draining all three independent hydraulic systems.
Left with no control wheel, rudder, or flaps, Captain Eric Gennotte and his crew manipulated only the left and right engine throttles (thrust vectoring) to climb, descend, and bank. They fought severe aerodynamic oscillations to guide the burning plane back to Baghdad Airport for the first-ever completely successful landing without flight controls.
5. Aloha Airlines Flight 243: The Convertible Jet (1988)
At 24,000 feet, metal fatigue caused an explosive decompression that ripped away an entire 5.5-meter section of the upper cabin roof, leaving passengers sitting in the open sky.
Captain Robert Schornstheimer and First Officer Mimi Tompkins fought severe structural drag and an engine failure. Steering a fuselage that was visibly flexing, they executed a rapid emergency descent and successfully landed the broken aircraft in Maui, Hawaii, saving 94 of the 95 people on board.
6. United Airlines Flight 232: The Sioux City Miracle (1989)
The tail-mounted engine of a DC-10 exploded mid-flight, sending shrapnel slicing through all three redundant hydraulic systems and rendering the cockpit flight controls entirely useless.
Captain Al Haynes and his crew, aided by a passenger who was a veteran check airman, worked as an extraordinary team to steer the heavy jet using differential engine throttle alone. Though the high-speed impact on the runway at Sioux City, Iowa, destroyed the aircraft, the crew’s unprecedented airmanship saved 184 of the 296 people on board—a feat simulator tests deemed completely impossible.
7. British Airways Flight 9: The Volcanic Ash Glider (1982)
While flying at night over the Indian Ocean, a Boeing 747 flew into a hidden cloud of volcanic ash. The abrasive dust choked the engines, causing all four to flame out simultaneously and leaving the jumbo jet completely powerless.
Captain Eric Moody established a stable glide and began an emergency descent. As they cleared the lower boundary of the ash cloud into clean air, the crew successfully restarted the engines. Despite a heavily sandblasted, opaque windshield that blocked their view, they executed a perfect instrument-guided landing in Jakarta.
8. Air Transat Flight 236: The Record-Breaking Glide (2001)
A fuel leak over the Atlantic Ocean drained the tanks of an Airbus A330, causing both engines to die while hundreds of miles away from any landmass.
Captain Robert Piché deployed the Ram Air Turbine (a small emergency wind turbine) to provide basic backup electrical and hydraulic power. He glided the wide-body jet for an astonishing 120 kilometers over the open ocean—the longest passenger jet glide in history—and safely touched down at a military base in the Azores, sparing 306 lives from an ocean ditching.
9. LOT Polish Airlines Flight 16: The Flawless Belly Landing (2011)
A central hydraulic leak completely disabled the primary landing gear system on a Boeing 767 arriving from Newark. The backup gravity-drop mechanism also failed, leaving the aircraft to land with no wheels extended.
Captain Tadeusz Wrona circled Warsaw’s Chopin Airport to burn off excess fuel and allow emergency crews to prepare the runway with flame-retardant foam. He performed a meticulously stable, flat belly landing, keeping the wings perfectly level as the metal scraped the asphalt. The plane stopped without catching fire, and all 231 passengers walked away uninjured.
10. Cathay Pacific Flight 780: Sticking the High-Speed Landing (2010)
Contaminated fuel taken at Surabaya caused severe damage to an Airbus A330’s fuel systems, freezing the engine throttles mid-flight. One engine completely flamed out, while the other became stuck at high thrust, refusing to slow down for arrival.
Captain Malcolm Hicks and First Officer David Casas faced an absolute nightmare scenario: landing a plane that was moving twice as fast as a normal approach speed. They managed to plant the heavy aircraft onto the runway in Hong Kong and applied maximum emergency braking, successfully stopping the jet just short of the ocean, saving all 322 people.
Quick Answers
Ask News18On September 30, 2026, Captain Smit Machchhar of Flydubai Flight FZ1073 was severely stabbed mid-air by his Omani co-pilot in an attempt to crash the plane. Despite his injuries, Machchhar unlocked the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to subdue the attacker while off-duty pilots landed the aircraft safely.
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At the news desk for 20 years, the story of her life has revolved around finding pun, facts while reporting, on radio, heading a daily newspaper desk, teaching mass media students to now editing speci…Read More
October 02, 2026, 5:30 PM IST
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