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- India Today reconstructed the Flydubai flight 1073 cockpit altercation inside a Boeing 737 simulator, with a reporter seated in the first officer's position alongside a flight instructor to retrace the sequence of events.
- Captain Smit Machchhar resisted the co-pilot's unauthorized attempt to take control and alter altitude settings, prompting the aircraft to transmit distress transponder code 7700 at 05:21 GMT.
- The aircraft squawked code 7500 — signaling unlawful interference and hijacking — seven minutes later as it plunged 14,000 feet near Jordanian airspace.
- The simulation walked through the cockpit crash axe's location and its potential unauthorized use during the mid-air confrontation.
- Captain Smit, despite being injured, managed to unlock the reinforced flight deck door, allowing intervening passengers and an off-duty pilot to secure the controls and divert safely to Tabuk Airport.
Why it matters: The walkthrough provides a rare, publicly accessible reconstruction of a real in-flight takeover attempt, showing how a co-pilot's unauthorized control inputs triggered a 7700-to-7500 transponder escalation and a 14,000-foot altitude loss near Jordanian airspace — and how the reinforced cockpit door plus the injured captain's actions ultimately enabled a safe diversion to Tabuk Airport.
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