JERUSALEM(VINnews) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening invited the Indian captain of a Tel Aviv-bound Flydubai flight to visit Israel as a guest of honour after he fought off an attack by his co-pilot and helped prevent the aircraft from being taken over.

Netanyahu said he wants Captain Smit Machchhar and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to light a torch at Israel’s national Independence Day ceremony next May. The honour is traditionally reserved for Israeli citizens.

“You are a true hero of the brave peoples of India and Israel, and you are a hero of the entire world,” Netanyahu told Machchhar in a video call released by the Prime Minister’s Office. The pilot was speaking from a hospital in the United Arab Emirates, where he is recovering from injuries sustained in the attack.

UAE investigators have said the co-pilot carried out what they described as a “terrorist act”, attacking Machchhar with an axe while the aircraft was in flight.

Machchhar later described how the attack unfolded. He said the co-pilot had asked to take time to pray, as Muslims are required to pray five times a day.

“A lot of locals, they do pray, which is not out of the ordinary. While he was praying, out of respect, I was just looking at the front and not at the back,” Machchhar said.

“Suddenly, after I think I would say about four to five minutes, there was a big blow to the back of my head. My first thought was that there was catastrophic damage to the aircraft and something is not right.”

“But then after that the blows kept coming one after the other. That’s when I realised that it’s not the aircraft, it’s the other guy who was in the cockpit with me.”

Machchhar said his memory of the incident was not completely clear because of his injuries. Nevertheless, he recalled managing to pull open the cockpit door, although the co-pilot apparently succeeded in closing it again.

“I had that one last fight left in me,” Machchhar said, explaining that he understood that he would likely die if he failed to regain control of the situation.

“That’s when I pushed against everything. I gave everything that I had and just went for the door and opened the door, and thankfully people were waiting.”

The incident has been described by Israeli officials as an attempted terrorist attack. Israel’s Defense Minister has called it an “attempted jihadist terror attack,” while US President Donald Trump has warned that the United States would respond forcefully if Iran were found to have been involved.