Barely 24 hours after Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar emerged as the hero of the Flydubai Flight FZ1073 crisis, a curious social-media narrative has surfaced. Instead of allowing the story to remain about the pilot who fought back after being stabbed inside the cockpit and helped prevent a catastrophe involving 174 people, an attempt is now being made by the Congress IT cell and trolls to co-opt his popularity and goodwill for a political narrative by portraying him as a Rahul Gandhi admirer.
Indian. Hindu.
— STOIC 🇦🇱🇨🇴🗡️⚔️ (@GunhaonKaDevta) October 1, 2026
Supports Rahul Gandhi. 🙏 https://t.co/Vg2uDgauY5 pic.twitter.com/CbTMRMgZyl
The claim, however, appears to rest on an Instagram account whose authenticity is highly questionable.
Captain Machchhar was flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv on September 30 when his Omani co-pilot attacked him inside the cockpit In what is described as a potential 9/11-style attack on Israel. The aircraft subsequently went into a steep descent before the injured captain managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to overpower the attacker. The aircraft was eventually diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. PM Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have publicly praised Machchhar for his courage.
But while Modi and Netanyahu were publicly saluting the Indian pilot, social media users began circulating screenshots purportedly showing that Machchhar himself is an admirer of Rahul Gandhi.
The “evidence” is an Instagram account carrying the username @smitmachchhar. The account uses Machchhar’s photograph as its profile picture, describes the user as a “Pilot” associated with Flydubai and has the name “Smit Machchhar”. One screenshot shows the account commenting “Respect” on a post featuring Rahul Gandhi.
At first glance, this may appear to be evidence of the pilot’s political leanings. There is, however, one rather inconvenient detail for those pushing the narrative: there is no evidence in the screenshots that the account actually belongs to Captain Smit Machchhar.
In fact, Instagram’s own “About this account” section raises serious questions.
The account shown in the screenshots was created in July 2026. More importantly, Instagram shows that the account has had nine former usernames.
A username and photograph are hardly sufficient to establish the identity of a public figure, particularly when the account has repeatedly changed usernames, and there is no visible verification linking it to Machchhar.
The screenshots therefore establish only one thing: an Instagram account using Captain Smit Machchhar’s name and photograph commented “Respect” on a Rahul Gandhi-related post. They do not establish that the real Flydubai captain made the comment.
The attempt to co-opt Machchhar’s newfound public goodwill becomes even more curious considering that Rahul Gandhi himself, as of October 1, had not publicly posted a message praising the Indian pilot’s extraordinary courage. BJP leaders have questioned Gandhi’s silence, while Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge did praise Machchhar and wished him a speedy recovery.
If the Congress ecosystem genuinely wants to celebrate Captain Machchhar, the appropriate response would simply be to acknowledge his courage and the lives he helped save. Instead, the circulation of an unverified social-media account appears to be an attempt to attach a political identity to a man whose actions have nothing to do with Indian electoral politics.
