Mumbai, Oct 1 (PTI) Former GoAir pilot Prakhar Gupta on Thursday recalled meeting Captain Smit Machchhar, the Indian commercial airline pilot hailed as a hero for averting a mid-air disaster, in the SpiceJet office in Mumbai just before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.“I was there to appear for an interview for a pilot’s post. That was where I first met Smit, who came across as a very nice person,” Gupta told PTI.
“He was then a senior pilot with SpiceJet. We discussed on several things in the aviation sector. That is when I realised that he had a vast knowledge of our field,” Gupta said.
Machchhar was a Line Training Captain, who is an experienced senior airline pilot responsible for instructing, mentoring, and evaluating other pilots during actual commercial passenger flights, he said.
“A Line Training Captain has to understand the mentality of the pilot under him as the actual aircraft is different from a simulator,” Gupta said.
“I had the opportunity to speak to him on a few occasions later. He hails from a family of aviators is what I came to know. His brother is also a pilot,” Gupta said.
Captain Smit Machchhar has been hailed as a hero by leaders across the globe, including President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and US President Donald Trump, after his act of bravery on board a Dubai-Tel Aviv flight averted a major air crash and saved the lives of 174 passengers, including 27 children.
Machchhar joined the aviation industry with SpiceJet in June 2011 and worked for over 11 years, before joining flydubai as a captain in 2022, where has now worked for more than four years. PTI VT
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