Media365
4 min readMumbaiOct 11, 2026 01:15 PM IST
Actor Shobhinaw Satyaa, who plays revered spiritual guru Neem Karoli Baba in Vishal Chaturvedi’s blockbuster devotional film Hanuman Ansh, has lauded Captain Smit Machchhar for reinstating faith in Hanuman Chalisa following his heroic act of bravery during a recent midair incident. The pilot had earlier told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that chanting the Lord Hanuman prayer served as his source of strength during the ordeal.
Lauding Captain Smit Machchhar at a recent India Today event, Shobhinaw Satyaa said, “We have grown up listening to stories of bravery. But those stories often made us feel that such things happened a long time ago, that there were people like that in the past. Incidents like these (Smit Machchhar’s act of bravery aboard a flydubai flight) remind us that heroes still exist,” said Shobhinaw.
“The bigger thing was that he also made us realise the power of the Hanuman Chalisa. When that man recited the Hanuman Chalisa there, he touched upon something that is a matter of faith for us,” he added.
After watching Smit Machchhar’s virtual conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where he revealed he chanted Hanuman Chalisa with his son every day, Shobhinaw Satyaa immediately recorded and shared a video on his social media handle. “I thanked him a lot for bringing this out in the open. He made our faith, which was already so strong, even more unshakeable,” the actor said.
Shobhinaw Satyaa came into the limelight after he played Neem Karoli Baba in Hanuman Ansh. Made on a modest budget of less than Rs 2 crore, the film has emerged as a sleeper hit, amassing around Rs 450 crore at the worldwide box office. It’s also contributed in a surge of daily visitors at Kainchi Dham, the spiritual site linked to Neem Karoli Baba in Uttarakhand, over the past couple of weeks.
Captain Smit Machchhar’s act of bravery
On September 30, Smit Machchhar was seriously injured after his co-pilot, an Omani national, allegedly attacked him with a crash axe aboard flydubai flight FZ1073. The axe is typically kept in the cockpit for emergencies. The motive behind the attack remains unclear. The Israel-bound flight, carrying 174 passengers, transmitted emergency signals and descended more than 17,000 feet from an altitude of 34,000 feet.
Despite lying injured on the cockpit floor, Machchhar realised that the aircraft was rapidly losing altitude and decided to make “one last push” to open the cockpit door. Two reserve pilots subsequently landed the aircraft safely at Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Airport in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The co-pilot was taken into custody, while Machchhar was rushed to a nearby hospital before being airlifted to Abu Dhabi.
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Last week, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Smit Machchhar’s health has been improving steadily. “Capt Machchhar is in a hospital in Abu Dhabi. Our Embassy in the UAE has been in regular touch with his family, his doctors, and hospital and local authorities there, so as to get the latest update about his health. According to the information that we have, his health is improving, and after operation, he is in the stage of recuperation. He is responding well,” the MEA said in a statement on Wednesday.
