New Delhi, Oct. 10 -- When flydubai flight FZ1073 began plunging toward the Arabian desert on September 30, the person standing between 174 people and the catastrophe was an Indian captain lying on the cockpit floor, bleeding. Captain Smit Machchhar, a Mumbai-born Boeing 737 veteran, had been attacked by his own first officer, and Israeli officials said the jet dropped nearly 14,000 feet in under 30 seconds. Somehow the wounded captain reached the cockpit door release. Crew and passengers overpowered the attacker, and two off-duty flydubai pilots riding in the cabin landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Machchhar in an Abu Dhabi hospital to thank him, and India is rightly proud. UAE prosecutors say the...