The incident during the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, which almost ended in disaster, is gaining new details. The FlyDubai plane almost crashed after the co-pilot attacked the captain with a knife, but the pᴀssengers managed to neutralize him and safely land the aircraft in Saudi Arabia. The motives of the attacker are still unknown. What the media write about the drama that played out in the sky is in the Izvestia digest.
Axios: Netanyahu says FlyDubai pilots prevented the “September 11 disaster”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has released new details of a FlyDubai flight en route to Israel, during which the pilot stabbed a colleague, causing the plane to dangle at an altitude of several thousand meters.
Netanyahu said that Indian pilot Smith Machchar, who was stabbed, opened the cockpit after the attack, and Israeli pᴀssenger Yaniv Hayoun, who works as a plumber, went inside and discovered that the Omani pilot was apparently trying to interfere with the control of the plane. Netanyahu said the suspect was being interrogated in Saudi Arabia and that the UAE had agreed that Israel could participate in the interrogation.
US President Donald Trump said Netanyahu and others had informed him of the incident. He called the pilot, who was wounded by a knife, a “hero” for managing to open the cockpit door, and also praised the plumber’s actions. Netanyahu made it clear that the investigators have no specific information indicating Iran’s involvement in the incident.
Bloomberg: pᴀssengers prevented the disaster by neutralizing the pilot who injured the captain
The disaster was avoided only by a miracle: pᴀssengers and crew members burst into the cockpit of a FlyDubai plane that took off in Dubai and managed to stabilize the airliner after it crashed more than 4,300 m in less than 30 seconds, almost at the speed of sound. The drama played out about two hours after the flight started. According to Flightradar24, the plane crashed sharply, after which it managed to gain altitude and transmit an emergency distress signal, followed by a so-called illegal interference signal, indicating a possible hijacking.
The incident occurred at a time when Netanyahu is running for re-election in a few weeks, promising to тιԍнтen security measures for his 10 million citizens. An attempted hijacking of a plane may sway undecided voters in his favor — although his main rivals also claim security as their top priority, continuing the fight against Iran and its puppet groups. Netanyahu said that almost all of the pᴀssengers on the flight were Israelis, and that those who intervened “showed exceptional resourcefulness and courage.”
ᴀssociated Press: The idenтιтy and motives of the attacker remain unknown.
The idenтιтy and motives of the Omani co-pilot who stabbed his captain during a flight to Israel, causing the plane to descend dangerously and was forced to land in Saudi Arabia, remain unknown to the public. Israeli pᴀssengers on a FlyDubai plane carrying 174 people from the UAE to Tel Aviv told how the bloodied Indian captain managed to open the cockpit door to let them in, after which they clashed with the co-pilot and stabilized the descent so sharply that the plane’s rudder was torn off.
The Saudi and UAE authorities have publicly stated only that investigations are underway. Saudi Arabia does not have official diplomatic relations with Israel, which could be an obstacle to any joint investigation. According to the Indian Embᴀssy in Riyadh, Captain Smith Machhar, who is considered by many to be one of the heroes of the flight, is in stable condition. The condition of the co-pilot is still unclear.
Reuters: From textile engineer to cockpit hero: Indian pilot deserves praise
For Indian pilot Smith Machchar, who was hailed as a hero for preventing the downing of a FlyDubai plane bound for Israel, aviation has never been a childhood dream. Machchar dreamed of starting a family textile business, until at the age of 19 he became interested in aviation, which scared his mother. Even after thousands of hours of flying, Machchar hides his love of aviation and does not discuss it with those on the ground.
Machchar is recovering in a hospital in the Saudi city of Tabuk, where his plane landed. The Mumbai native was covered in blood on the cockpit floor when he managed to activate the cockpit door opening mechanism. This allowed the pᴀssengers and crew to neutralize the co-pilot, and two other FlyDubai pilots who were traveling as pᴀssengers helped land the plane. The experienced captain of the Boeing 737, who flew almost 9,750 hours in his 15-year career, joined aviation relatively late. He worked for the Indian commercial airline SpiceJet for more than a decade before joining FlyDubai in 2022.
The Washington Post: how terrorist attacks changed cockpit doors
The emergency landing of a Flydubai flight in Saudi Arabia could have ended in a much bigger disaster if the crew and pᴀssengers had not been able to get through the cockpit door. The doors of modern aircraft are designed as reinforced barriers. This became a key moment in the efforts to prevent terrorist attacks after September 11, when hijackers broke down the doors to take control of the planes.But this is not a reliable system. Such an access system did not prevent the Germanwings disaster in 2015, when the co-pilot, who was trying to commit suicide, crashed the plane into a mountain, killing all 150 people on board. The investigation revealed that the pilot locked the cockpit door and denied access using an external code after the captain left the cockpit, possibly to use the toilet. After that disaster, many airlines and regulators adopted rules prohibiting leaving anyone alone in the cockpit.
💔 STELLA PARTON BREAKS HER SILENCE — What She Said About Dolly’s Health Has Fans Looking Back
Dolly Parton’s Sister Breaks Silence What Really Happened - GMT - G1
Stella Parton was born May 4, 1949, the sixth of twelve children raised by Robert Lee and Avie Lee Parton in Sevierville, Tennessee — a household defined by noise, limited money, and almost no privacy, the kind of environment that produced strong, determined personalities.
Stella was one of them.
By seven, she was appearing alongside her older sister Dolly on a Knoxville television program; by her teens, she was writing her own songs, though marriage and motherhood pulled music to the margins of her life for a stretch.
The dream never fully disappeared.
In 1967, she recorded a gospel album with her mother and sisters, and later worked clubs in Washington, D.C., before founding her own record label in 1975 and releasing “I Want to Hold You in My Dreams Tonight,” which climbed to number nine on the country charts.
Long before any of that commercial success, Stella had already shown a willingness to take positions others avoided.
At 26, amid backlash against Australian singer Olivia Newton-John for winning recognition in country music, Stella recorded “Ode to Olivia” in her defense — a stand that offered her no career benefit and real risk of criticism, but one she took anyway simply because she believed staying silent was the wrong choice.
That instinct defined the rest of her career: hits like “The Danger of a Stranger” and “Steady as the Rain” (written by Dolly) built a genuine, independent following, including in the U.K., while Stella also worked in New York theater and spoke openly, often controversially, about poverty, domestic violence, and the treatment of women in the music industry.
She was named the Christian Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 2004.
Through all of it, she remained defined publicly, more often than not, as simply “Dolly’s little sister” — a label she spent five decades quietly proving didn’t tell the full story.
That same directness is why her comments in the fall of 2025 carried real weight.
Stella had never positioned herself as the family’s image manager or spokesperson; she was, by reputation, someone who believed difficult truths shouldn’t stay hidden indefinitely.
What she described wasn’t dramatic or accusatory — it was a portrait of a woman who had spent years prioritizing everyone else’s needs over her own.
The context mattered.
Carl Dean, Dolly’s husband of nearly sixty years, died in March 2025 at 82, after a long illness during which Dolly had devoted herself almost entirely to his care.
She later acknowledged that in the process, she’d neglected her own health significantly.
The loss reverberated through the whole extended family — the Partons had lost three brothers in the years surrounding this period, compounding grief that, for a family that had once crowded twelve children into a single small home, meant losing pieces of a shared childhood one after another.
Stella herself went seven years without releasing new music during this stretch, later describing the period simply as one shaped by sorrow, while still speaking about the importance of finding moments of laughter within it.
Looking back, one moment reads very differently in hindsight than it did at the time: in late September 2025, Dolly postponed her planned Las Vegas residency, citing health challenges — a rare cancellation for a performer whose six-decade career had included very few of them.
At the time, most fans treated it as a minor, temporary setback.
Stella’s later reflections suggested the signs had actually been building for some time, visible to family in ways the public smile made easy to miss.
That concern crystallized publicly not long after, when Dolly’s younger sister Frieda posted a simple request on Facebook asking fans to pray for Dolly.
What looked at first like an ordinary, well-meaning gesture spread rapidly, sparking widespread speculation about how serious Dolly’s condition actually was.
Dolly herself responded directly within days, appearing in a video from a Grand Ole Opry commercial shoot, insisting with her familiar humor that she wasn’t finished yet — the now widely remembered “I ain’t dead yet” moment that briefly quieted public concern.
In the months that followed, the pattern repeated: reassuring updates about kidney stones, dehydration, and treatment, paired with continued work on new projects, right up until Dolly Parton’s death on August 25, 2026, at 80.
Looking back across that full timeline — the postponed residency, the family’s public worry, Stella’s own account of a sister who consistently deprioritized her own wellbeing — it becomes easier to see what the people closest to Dolly understood well before the rest of the world did: that the warmth and resilience the public saw every time she appeared on camera came at a real, largely invisible cost.
