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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 9:59:04 pm

Captains Courageous

There are moments when a single act of courage stands between catastrophe and survival. Captain Smit Machchhar’s actions aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 was one such moment. The routine Wednesday flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv became a potential mass-casualty disaster. The co-pilot allegedly attacked and stabbed Captain Machchhar inside the cockpit as the Boeing 737 plunged nearly 14,000 feet in about 30 seconds. Despite being gravely wounded, Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door, enabling...

Captains Courageous

There are moments when a single act of courage stands between catastrophe and survival. Captain Smit Machchhar’s actions aboard Flydubai Flight FZ1073 was one such moment. The routine Wednesday flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv became a potential mass-casualty disaster. The co-pilot allegedly attacked and stabbed Captain Machchhar inside the cockpit as the Boeing 737 plunged nearly 14,000 feet in about 30 seconds. Despite being gravely wounded, Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door, enabling passengers and crew to enter, overpower the attacker and help regain control of the aircraft. Other pilots on board subsequently helped stabilise the aircraft before it made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. All 174 people on board survived. It is difficult to overstate what Machchhar had to confront in those seconds. He was not merely dealing with an aircraft malfunction or a sudden loss of control. The danger was inside the cockpit itself, from the very person who was supposed to be helping him fly the aircraft. He had been physically attacked, was seriously injured and was simultaneously faced with an aircraft plunging thousands of feet. Yet he retained enough presence of mind to act decisively. Some early international coverage described the episode in language such as a “fight”, “clash” or “altercation.” Whether investigators ultimately classify it as terrorism, attempted hijacking or another form of deliberate criminal attack remains to be established, the incident was no ordinary “altercation between pilots.” It was a lethal attack inside an aircraft’s cockpit that resulted in a catastrophic descent and an apparent attempt to seize control of the aircraft. Such a serious incident cannot be conveyed by the word “brawl”. A brawl suggests two people losing their tempers. This incident placed 174 lives in immediate danger. The fact that the aircraft was carrying a large number of Israeli passengers, including families and children, makes the minor altercation theory ludicrous. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incident as one in which Machchhar and those who intervened prevented a disaster comparable to 9/11. Captain Machchhar’s conduct has invited comparisons with Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, whose name became synonymous with cockpit courage after landing US Airways Flight 1549 safely on the Hudson River, except the stakes in Machchhar’s case were higher. He did what a pilot is trained and expected to do in the worst imaginable circumstances: he put the lives of his passengers before his own. His training alone does not explain the extraordinary composure that is required when the person sitting beside you has attacked you and the aircraft is in a steep descent. Captain Machchhar has displayed extraordinary courage and deserves to be a household name. India can rightly salute him while the world waits for investigators to establish exactly what happened and why.

Choking Mumbai

Correspondent
Apr 22, 2025
2 min read

For decades, Mumbai was perceived as a rare urban oasis, where the saline sweep of the Arabian Sea blunted the worst ravages of India's air pollution. That illusion has now been dispelled. A meticulous four-year study by Respirer Living Sciences (RLS), using data from its AtlasAQ platform, reveals the bleak truth that the city’s air is thick with pollutants all year round, with no ‘clean season’ left.


Mumbai’s annual average levels of PM10 (particulate matter ten microns or less in diameter) have consistently breached the national safety threshold of 60 micrograms per cubic metre (μg/m³). This is not merely a seasonal malaise tied to cooler winter months, as once assumed. Alarmingly, the city’s pollution levels persist even through the hot season, a time when improved atmospheric dispersion should offer natural reprieve.


Across the city - from Chakala in Andheri East to Deonar, Kurla, Vile Parle West and Mazgaon - pollution has become an unrelenting, ubiquitous presence.


The culprits are well known: traffic emissions from a burgeoning number of vehicles; unregulated dust from frenzied construction; industrial activity in and around the ports; and a conspicuous lack of dust control measures. Mumbai’s ceaseless growth now risks becoming a chronic liability.


Worryingly, the regulatory response remains sluggish. Mumbai’s urban planning continues to treat clean air as a peripheral concern, not a foundational necessity. Development plans rarely integrate environmental impact assessments in a meaningful way.


A sharper, citywide strategy is urgently needed. Dust suppression rules at construction sites must be enforced strictly, with financial penalties for violators and incentives for best practices. Traffic management systems should be overhauled to ease congestion and encourage the use of public transport. Expansion of clean, reliable mass transit network needs to be urgently prioritised. In addition, comprehensive real-time air monitoring at the ward level should be deployed, enabling authorities to respond to localised pollution spikes swiftly rather than relying on citywide averages that conceal dangerous hotspots.


Longer-term, clean air targets must be hardwired into the city’s master planning and transport policies. Green buffers along major traffic corridors, stricter emission norms for commercial vehicles and incentives for rooftop gardens and urban afforestation could all play a part. Industrial zones near port areas should be subjected to rigorous air quality compliance measures, not token self-certifications. Private developers and large infrastructure firms, often among the worst offenders, must be made stakeholders in the clean air mission through binding regulations.


Mumbai’s commercial dynamism - as a magnet for migrants, entrepreneurs and investors - depends not just on glittering skyscrapers but on something far more basic: the ability to breathe. Unless clean air becomes an unshakeable priority, the city risks suffocating its own future. For a metropolis that prides itself on its resilience against terror attacks, monsoon floods and economic shocks, the real test will be whether it can muster the will to fight an invisible, pervasive enemy slowly corroding the lives of its 20 million citizens.

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