The world is Smit-ten not bitten by Machchhar, and even as the accolades pour in, Mumbai’s Harmony Foundation has nominated Captain Smit Machchhar for the Mother Teresa Memorial Awards for Social Justice 2026 in recognition of the hero pilot’s saving 174 lives aboard a flight he was captaining from Dubai to Tel Aviv.

Terror plot

His Omani co-pilot assaulted him in a bid to take control of the aircraft and crash it 9/11-style, in a jihadi terrorist plot. Despite being bloody and battered, Machchhar fought back, opened the cockpit door, and he and other passengers controlled the situation, subdued the co-pilot intent on killing all, a majority of whom were Jews, and brought the plane down safely in Saudi Arabia.