Who is the 'hero' Indian pilot who was stabbed on Israel-bound flight?

Capt Machchhar grew up in the Indian city of Mumbai, where his parents still live. In 2008, he joined Mainland Air, an aviation college in New Zealand's Dunedin, before joining Indian airline SpiceJet as a commercial pilot three years later. He moved to Dubai and joined Flydubai in 2022, having become an experienced pilot.Speaking to the BBC, Philip Kean, the CEO of Mainland Air, said he remembers Capt Machchhar as a man who would remain calm in a crisis. "We trained him for forced landing - not this kind of situation, which is very, very rare," Kean said. "It was a long time back but he came across as a good and honest worker."Capt Machchhar has more than 9,750 hours of flying experience, including more than 6,400 hours as pilot-in-command, according to his LinkedIn profile.His former employer SpiceJet issued a statement calling Machchhar a "hero" who had saved "countless lives".Last year, Capt Machchhar spoke about how he started flying and his experiences as a pilot on a podcast called Bona-Fide Banter.Aviation, he said, was "never a childhood dream". When he was around 19, he joined a management course, planning to work with his family's business. But then he came across an avi...