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CNN International: Israel: Pilot Stabbing Was "Attempted Terrorist Attack"; Some U.S. States Taking Steps To Tackle High Fuel Prices; Start Of Prisoner Early Release Plan To Ease Overcrowding; Hundreds Of Migrants Near Border, Hoping To Get Into U.S. Aired 4- 4:30a ET

Aired October 01, 2026 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[04:00:31]

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm Salma Abdelaziz in London. Let's get straight to our headlines.

A brutal attack on the cockpit of an Israel-bound flight is being called an apparent hijacking attempt. What we're learning about that terrifying incident and the heroic actions that prevented a bigger disaster.

Plus, Britain's prisons are running out of space and the government's solution to the overcrowding is sending shockwaves of fear and anger throughout communities.

And later, a Tennessee death row inmate is still alive after a failed attempt to execute her.

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Salma Abdelaziz.

ABDELAZIZ: It's 9:00 A.M. here in London, 11:00 A.M. in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where Israeli officials now say they are investigating the stabbing of a Flydubai pilot as a terrorist attack.

Passengers on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv are describing a nightmare in the sky after one of the pilots allegedly attacked the other, forcing the plane to be diverted to Saudi Arabia.

Despite the incident, they eventually arrived safely at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel on Wednesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SCREAMING)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Check it, check it (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP) ABDELAZIZ: Passengers rushed the cockpit and subdued the attacker. A dentist on board administered medical aid to that wounded pilot. And the airline says on-duty crew members regained control of the plane.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with passengers after they landed in Tel Aviv, some still in their bloody clothes. He praised the wounded pilot, who Israel says somehow managed to unlock the cockpit door so passengers could come to his rescue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The amazing heroism here of the Indian pilot, the Israeli passenger, and his colleagues, and those pilots managed to prevent a 9/11 disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABDELAZIZ: Let's go live now to Jerusalem where CNN's international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is standing by.

So, Nic, we understand that Israel wants to get involved in the investigation. If it will get involved, how is this going to work? This is -- this is across multiple countries now.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It is and -- and it's sort of not clear yet what the jurisdiction is going to be. Is it going to be Saudi Arabia that would head the investigation because they were the country that the aircraft was flying over when the incident happened? They were the country where the aircraft touched down. They were the country that actually right now has custody of the attacker.

The captain also is in Saudi Arabia. He was the Indian captain who was badly wounded. As you say, saved by the dentist. The dentist on board said that if they hadn't gotten treatment to him sooner, he would have quite literally bled out. He said he was bleeding and -- and -- and his, you know, his blood pressure was dropping in a -- in a shocking and alarming way.

So, is it going to be Saudi Arabia? Or will it be the UAE, the Emirates, because that's where the plane took off from and that's where the company Flydubai is based?

But the understanding that Prime Minister Netanyahu, and you heard him there say it is that he understands that it -- he thinks at least that it will end up, the jurisdiction will end up and the attacker will end up in the Emirates.

And therefore, Israel has been invited to join the investigation, interrogation, he called it of this attacker. So, that's where things stand at the moment.

You know, and, of course, the answers that they -- Israel wants to get and -- and -- and the Emirates, and no doubt Saudi Arabia as well, is what was the motivation? What was going on in the mind of this pilot who was doing, who was attacking the other pilot? You know, Israel clearly believes that this was some kind of terrorist event, that his intent was to crash the plane. So, you know, why did he take those calls of actions? What was he using to stab the other pilot? So, those are all outstanding. And -- and -- and at the moment, that isn't clear. I do expect some of that to get resolved today.

[04:05:05]

But I think, you know, for the passengers waking up today who are on board that flight, I mean, what an -- what an elation to come home, but it's not an experience they're going to be able to walk away from easily and undoubtedly some of them are going to relive with this trauma for quite some time.

Listen to what one of the passengers had to say when she got off the plane.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKA BAUMAN, FLYDUBAI PASSENGER: We just felt the plane dropped completely and start spinning a little. And everyone was screaming. There were children crying. And it was just like a death-in-front-of- our-eyes moment. Like I -- I was just sure I was going to die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: You know, but -- you know, as everyone sort of waits for the investigative thread to kind of emerge and take shape, it's still, I think, a lot of people that are just having that sense of what courage that everyone had on board the plane to -- to try to grasp the situation and -- and save their own lives.

ABDELAZIZ: CNN's Nic Robertson there describing an atmosphere of relief in Israel after those passengers landed back in what they called a near-death experience. Thank you so much.

Now, President Trump says he is studying a potential response against Iran. This is after a suspected terrorist plot at an air base in England. He spoke hours after British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Tehran might have been involved in that incident at the Fairford base.

The facility has been used by U.S. bombers to launch strikes on Iran. Here's what Burnham had to say on Wednesday.

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ANDY BURNHAM, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: There are strong indications that Iran played a part in what happened over the weekend at RAF Fairford. But, of course, it remains an ongoing complex and serious police investigation. And, of course, we are working closely with our colleagues in the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABDELAZIZ: Now, Iran strongly rejected those accusations calling them unfounded and malicious speculations. Five people were arrested near the base on Sunday and accused of terrorism and explosives related offenses. They were later released on bail.

But there was a new twist in the case on Wednesday when British media reported that one of the suspects called police shortly before their arrest. "The Times" newspaper says authorities are investigating whether he got cold feet or the call itself was actually part of the alleged plot.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News that Israel had given intelligence to Britain about an upcoming attack sponsored by Iran.

In the meanwhile, President Trump again says, the war with Iran will end soon and he says there are two ways that can happen.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You described the Iranians that the U.S. is dealing with as crazy. How do you get a deal done when the counterparts to the U.S. are crazy and irrational, whatever you want to use to describe.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Maybe you blow them up. Maybe you blow them up. We have to make that decision. We blow them up, we make a deal. But the time is coming. It's going to end very soon, one way the other.

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ABDELAZIZ: Now, earlier, Iranian state media said Tehran had received a formal response from the U.S. to its latest proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump had publicly rejected it over the weekend, but Iran says it didn't get any official response until now.

Meanwhile, this is where oil prices stand after those settlements, according to Marine Tracking Service, Kpler. You can see both Brent Crude Oil and WTI Crude Oil there on the rise.

The flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz has been just under 80 percent of pre-war levels in recent days.

U.S. drivers are digging deeper into their pockets to keep up with the surging gas prices. But as the war with Iran shows, no signs of ending anytime soon. Many states are trying to ease that pain.

CNN's Matt Egan explains.

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MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: As Washington debates how to fight high fuel prices, states are taking matters into their own hands in a bid to lower costs for consumers, farmers, and truckers. And this is happening really across the country. It's happening in red states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.

Also in blue states like California and Massachusetts, as well as in some of those battleground purple states like Georgia and Michigan. This shows that local officials, they are taking seriously these frustrations they're hearing from voters ahead of the midterms.

So, exactly what are they doing? Well, some states like Indiana, Georgia, Illinois, and Kentucky, they are temporarily suspending or lowering taxes on gasoline and diesel. This could be helpful. For example, in Georgia on Tuesday, they suspended their 33 cent a gallon gas tax. And already, gas prices in that state are down 13 cents a gallon. Of course, there's a trade-off because it means less tax revenue coming into those states.

[04:10:10]

Now other states, they're accelerating when winter-blend gasoline can be used. That's important because the winter gas, it's cheaper. Now, this can be helpful as well in California. Analysts say that could save about 25 cents a gallon, a little less than that in Michigan.

And then you might've heard about red-dyed diesel. Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas, they're boosting the use of red-dyed diesel. Now, this is the same as regular diesel. It's just dyed because it's untaxed and it's normally reserved for off- road use like farmers on tractors. This could be helpful as well.

So, you put it all together, these steps can help lower costs, but none of them are really game changers.

Veteran analyst, Andy Lipow, he told me states they're doing what they can, where they can control it. But he said what they can't control is the war in Iran and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. And that's really what's driving prices.

Before the war, the national average for gasoline was just $2.98 a gallon. Look at this. $4.43 a gallon now. Now, it's true, this is well below the Iran war high back in May, above $4.50 a gallon. It's also well below the record high from four years ago of $5.02 a gallon.

But make no mistake, this is very high historically. I went back and looked at the price on September 30th nationally, going back in history, and this is where we are now. And it is clearly miles ahead of previous years, significantly higher even than in 2022, the year of record high gas prices and dramatically higher than during COVID and before COVID.

Similar story for diesel, which, of course, is the workhorse fuel powering trucks, tractors, boats and trains. Diesel just off the all- time high, it's at $6.41 a gallon. But look how much higher it is than two years ago and last year and three years ago as well.

So bottom line here, these moves from states, they could be helpful. They show that local officials are taking these frustrations seriously. But analysts say, if you really want to lower prices for gas and for diesel, the best way to do that is to end the war with Iran. And, of course, that's not something up to the states. Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ABDELAZIZ: We have so much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom." Just ahead, Spanish protesters refused to budge from a major square in the heart of Madrid, saying the government's proposed housing reform bills do not go far enough.

Plus, here in the U.K., a controversial scheme to release inmates early from prison goes into effect today. We're going to get perspective from an expert on what might lie ahead.

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[04:15:51]

ABDELAZIZ: You're looking at live pictures from Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where hundreds of protesters remain camped out over what they say is a housing crisis in Spain. They've occupied the square for several days and nights in solidarity with an 87-year-old woman who was forcibly evicted from her home last week.

She has since been allowed to return to her home. And the government has proposed two bills to address the country's housing crisis, including banning evictions until 2020. But protesters say that's simply not enough and they're refusing to leave their makeshift camp.

Now, here to the U.K., where prisons are facing an overcrowding crisis with prisons in England and Wales dangerously close to 100 percent capacity, but some of the attempts to find a solution have sparked outrage.

A controversial measure that kicks off today will see thousands of prisoners released early. That doesn't include those convicted of the most serious crimes, but many in prison for lesser offenses will be freed either serving half or a third of their sentence.

Probation officers are threatening to strike over these changes and victim's rights groups say they worry that victims are not adequately protected.

To discuss this further, I'm joined now from London by Pia Sinha. She is a former prison governor and now the CEO of the Prison Reform Trust. Good morning to you. Thank you so much for being on to break this down on the day that it is happening, because this is a policy, of course, as you know that will see thousands of prisoners released early to ease overcrowding.

I think you've seen the public outrage, you've seen the questions. And the thing on everyone's mind is, is this the best way to protect the public? Or does it risk more reoffending? And how do you weigh those risks against the harm caused by overcrowded prisons with less access to rehabilitation?

PIA SINHA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, PRISON REFORM TRUST: Well, it's a great question and it's the heart of the matter. I think the -- the government has committed to delivering 14,000 additional prison places, so just to contextualize how deep the crisis is. But even with all of their efforts, the current population is 86,500 today. And it's projected that by 2030, it will rise to 100,600. So, there is so much demand for prison places that unless the government acted now, even with a very ambitious building plan, it will run out of space.

And this lack of space or lack of flexibility in the system has a profound impact on public protection generally, because when prisons are so full to capacity, they're currently 98 percent capacity, that if you were to have any anomaly in -- in the rise of prison population, it simply will not have the space to hold offenders safely and that has a massive impact on future victim. And this is the dilemma that the government is in.

[04:20:07]

ABDELAZIZ: It's absolutely a dilemma. And I think victims groups as well have been -- have been speaking out on the issue. And -- and as you know, some are very distressed by these early release dates. They're losing faith in the justice system even with the exclusion, of course, of -- of these more serious offenses.

What safeguards must be in place to protect those victims? And what would you say to those who feel their offenders' early release simply undermines justice?

SINHA: Yes. And I think that there is so much empathy for the -- the -- the feelings of victims and one should never play fast and loose with the feelings that victims have.

But I guess the point to make is that there are no happy solutions to this. This crisis has been building for decades. It's not a new problem. And it has been successive government's inability to deal with this at the earliest point when -- when the capacity was looming.

I think that part of what's happened, and this is what our Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said, is that politics has -- has -- needs to be done differently. Politics has meant that it is always this issue of -- of prison overcrowding has been relegated to the too difficult to handle box, and no one has shown political bravery in tackling it when the crisis was building.

And we are now in the situation where we're having to be apologizing to victims to say, sorry, we can't do this. This problem should have been tackled much earlier on. However, we are where we are.

And what we need to try and do is to go back to the evidence and say, well, what happens when a prison is in crisis? When a prison is running hot, it means that no rehabilitation is done, that it means that emergency measures for release have to be enacted when there simply isn't any room.

Police officers might be told that you can't make arrests. Courts have to be told that you can't sentence people and that creates a further and much more deeper problem for victims.

And we have to avoid that at every cost, which is why early --

ABDELAZIZ: But -- but if I -- if I may ask you. If I may ask you, does this -- does trying to ease this crisis simply create another crisis? Because the probation officers union is warning that it is heading for a complete meltdown. You have the overwhelming -- overwhelming workloads and burnout.

Can it safely supervise thousands more people released now? And -- and I know that there's a pledge for $700 million but -- GBP 700 million rather, but how quickly can that make an impact? And again, is this a crisis that's just creating another crisis for -- for probation officials?

SINHA: Yes, absolutely. And this is a very, very important point that you've made. The whole of the criminal justice system is interlinked. And by fixing one part of the prison's -- the -- the criminal justice system, which is prisons, you are then deferring the problem onto probation. And probation unions are right to be concerned.

Workloads have been impossible in probation. And early release schemes do put inordinate pressure on very hardworking probation officers and their right to be concerned.

However, the government's injection of money will be welcome. But what we also need to do is to look upstream of -- of -- of reform, what needs to happen in terms of early intervention to prevent people from committing crime in the first place.

We do need to look at concepts such as justice reinvestment and devolution. How do they impact on the criminal justice system? Other partners like health delivery partners, the third sector, the voluntary sector, they all have to be involved to -- to see this as a collective problem, because otherwise, the problem stays within prison and probation. And this is a much wider societal problem that must be tackled with common purpose.

ABDELAZIZ: Pia Sinha there on an early release scheme that has triggered outrage and very rightly pointing out that it is the root issues that need to be addressed here if the criminal justice system is to be reformed. Thank you so much for your analysis.

Donald Trump's sweeping crackdown on immigration has sharply reduced illegal crossings at the U.S. border. But right now, hundreds of migrants are headed north from Latin America in a caravan hoping to enter the United States. The Trump administration is already warning that they are not welcome.

Our Valeria Leon has more on this.

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VALERIA LEON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A new group of Central American migrants is making its way north through Mexico.

Guatemalan migration officials say around 400 people entered their country, including families and children. Most say their final destination is the United States.

[04:25:00]

ALEXANDER GUEVARA, HONDURAN MIGRANT (through text translation): I want to succeed for my family. We are not criminals. We are not thieves. We want to work.

LEON (voice-over): The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it's actively tracking the caravan.

In a statement to CNN, DHS warned, "Migrants considering the journey that the days of catch and release are over."

Among those heading north is 29-year-old Carlos Alexis. He lost a leg in a car accident when he was just 17, making an already difficult journey even harder.

CARLOS ALEXIS, HONDURAN MIGRANT (through text translation): Even in my situation, I think I could find a job because I have seen many examples and maybe I could also get help with a prosthetic.

LEON (voice-over): Despite the Trump administration tough immigration policies and a sharp drop in illegal border crossings, members of this group say their destination remains the U.S.

LEON: Unlike other migrant caravans that left southern Mexico earlier this year, this group is not looking to settle in this country.

LEON (voice-over): But migrants in this caravan point to different reasons for leaving home, including violence and a lack of job opportunities.

SUSANA CAROLINA USORTO, HONDURAN MIGRANT (through text translation): There are no jobs. When you look for work, there are no jobs.

LEON (voice-over): And with hundreds of miles still ahead, their journey is far from over.

Valeria Leon, CNN, Mexico City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ABDELAZIZ: You're watching "CNN Newsroom" live from London. We'll get you up to date on the stabbing of a Flydubai pilot, just ahead.

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