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CNN International: Flydubai Passengers Describe "Nightmare," "Complete Chaos;" Death Row Inmate Still Alive After Two Doses Of Lethal Drug; New Documents Raise Questions In Cornell Sexual Abuse Probe. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired October 01, 2026 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Salma Abdelaziz. Let's get up to date on our top story this hour. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is praising passengers on that Flydubai flight, where one of the pilots allegedly stabbed the other. They rushed to the cockpit and subdued the attacker. Netanyahu says the pilot is a hero who prevented a "9/11 disaster." CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean has more on the attack and a warning beforehand. His report does contain graphic video.

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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: For the passengers on Flydubai Flight 1073, this was the moment of relief after their trip turned terrifying. The Boeing 737 Max left Dubai for Tel Aviv and climbed normally to 34,000 feet, but two hours into the flight, the plane suddenly plunged. Flightradar24 data shows a steep descent, a sharp climb, then another dive. The jet ultimately losing nearly 20,000 feet of altitude in 35 seconds, reaching speeds of nearly 700 miles per hour.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just felt the plane drop completely and start spinning a little, and everyone was screaming. There were children crying.

MUNTEAN: Israeli officials say the flight's first officer stabbed the captain, identified as Smit Machchhar from India, and then tried to crash the airplane. Passengers and off-duty Flydubai pilots rushed forward, forced their way into the cockpit. The injured pilot, apparently able to unlock the door.

I grabbed the attacker, put him in a chokehold, and dragged him out first. Passenger Yaniv Hayun told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his shirt still stained with blood. "Two other guys came over," he said, "I jumped back, grabbed the controls, and started pulling back the handles." The plane started to level out a bit, and then the pilot told me he was taking over the controls from there. Hayun told Netanyahu he knew what to do because he watched documentaries about plane crashes.

Disturbing video shows passengers providing first aid to the stabbed pilot. His blood smeared on a door. Nearby, the attacker also apparently injured in a blood-soaked shirt. They tried to murder the pilot, and we took over the crew, one passenger says. By then, the flight had declared an emergency. First, transmitting the emergency transponder code, then the code for a hijacking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have taken control of the terrorists. We are about to land. Anyone who hears me, we need help.

MUNTEAN: The plane landed in Saudi Arabia, apparently damaged by the force of the sudden dive. Ultimately, arriving at Tel Aviv's airport on a different Flydubai flight, Israeli passengers chanted, "The people of Israel live." After a brush with death that apparently originated from inside the cockpit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I felt that I'm losing it and I'm going to -- to lose all my family. It was very, very terrifying.

MUNTEAN: Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says this incident triggered no credible threats in the U.S. Even still, the agency says it's reviewing policies to make sure Americans are safe. There have been successful cases of what's known as suicide by pilot, like the Germanwings crash of 2015, that sparked renewed calls to reform pilot mental health screening.

It's a major stigma for commercial pilots who say treatment can jeopardize their livelihood. The U.S. Senate just passed a bill that would increase options for pilots, but it has yet to pass the House. Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.

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ABDELAZIZ: Meanwhile, Israel is preparing to mark three years since the October 7 terror attacks next week. CNN's Jim Sciutto asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu what he and his government knew about those attacks in advance.

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You are aware of reports, recent reports, that Egypt and the UAE warned you prior to the October Seven attacks. Do you take any personal responsibility for not doing enough to prevent them?

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL: Well, first of all, those reports are false. They didn't give me any such warnings. That's completely false, and it's -- it's obvious. You know, there are elements both in -- in our neighboring countries and also political opponents who are putting forth these lies.

In fact, we didn't have -- I didn't receive such warnings. But the more important thing is that we -- I would say we recovered so quickly after this monstrous attack on October Seven that for Israel, you know, to kill 1200 Israelis in one day is equivalent to murdering 40,000 Americans in one day, and that's a big, big hit. But we recovered very quickly, pushed back the -- these Hamas monsters, and obviously we're -- we're absolutely committed to making sure this never happens again.

Gaza has to be rearmed -- or rather, Hamas has to be disarmed. Gaza has to be demilitarized, and of course, Gaza has to be de-radicalized from this insane lunacy that these fanatics propagate.

[04:35:00]

SCIUTTO: I was in Israel soon after the October Seven attacks. I talked to victims. I talked to a father who lost his daughter in the south. And as you know, it's not just foreign actors or officials who are assigning blame to you. You have Israeli officials. You have a military officer who said they sent letters in advance warning of a major attack.

You have Ronen Bar saying he warned you of an impending disaster. I suppose I'm just asking you, is there anything you wish you had done prior to prevent or to respond more quickly to those attacks?

NETANYAHU: Well, I think we all recognize that -- that there was no solid intelligence assessment. In fact, the intelligence assessments were the exact opposite, including days before the attack, days before the attack. I mean, we had security meetings, and basically, people were saying Hamas is deterred.

Hamas just wants, you know, economic benefits and so on. So clearly, we were all blindsided by this. But I think that the important thing is, what do you do when that happens? What do you do when you have a 9/11? What do you do when you have a Pearl Harbor? You don't just ask. Oh, how -- how come we didn't see? We do ask that question, and we -- we're going to come to the bottom of it, obviously, with a proper investigative effort.

But I think the real question is, OK, then what do you do? What did you do after Pearl Harbor? What did you do after 9/11? You went after the bad guys, and that's what we did. And the important thing is, it's a -- it's a network really. It's a network of Iran that pushed that created these terrorist fortresses right next to our border, spitting distance from Tel Aviv with Hamas, spitting distance from the north of Israel with Hezbollah, and we pushed them back, really hammered them very hard.

You remember the beepers and other things that we did, making sure they cannot invade our country again, and doing all the things that we can to prevent Iran, the head of the octopus of this toxic octopus, from having nuclear weapons. That's been our goal, and I think much of it has been achieved. But there's still work to do. You're quite right.

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ABDELAZIZ: Now Netanyahu's handling of the attacks, whether he had advance warnings and the war in Gaza are among the key issues as voters in Israel go to the polls on October 27th.

Still to come, new details on the alleged sexual assault at Cornell University. We'll tell you what we are learning with a new independent investigation now in the works.

Plus, Tennessee's governor is putting a hold on executions after the failed lethal injection of a 50-year-old woman convicted of a murder she committed at age 18.

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[04:40:00]

ABDELAZIZ: A Tennessee death row inmate is still alive. This is after the state's attempt to execute her failed. Attorneys for Christa Gail Pike say she was still breathing after being injected with two doses of a lethal drug. Pike's execution had been scheduled for Wednesday morning, but an appeals court stopped it at the last minute.

Hours later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that stay, paving the way for what would have been Tennessee's first execution of a woman in at least 200 years. Her attorneys say Pike was taken from the prison by ambulance and is now being treated at a hospital. Here's how one reporter described the botched execution.

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CATHERINE SWEENEY, WPLN REPORTER: This is an enormous dose of a sedative that should not ever need to happen twice, but it did, and then she stayed alive. I think one of the issues we have here is the protocol doesn't talk about what happens if you do this twice and they're still alive. I don't think that that is something that was planned for, so there was no rules about when to open the curtain after a second time. This is pretty unprecedented. None of it should have happened, and it wasn't planned for.

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ABDELAZIZ: Now Pike was convicted in the 1995 killing of a teenage classmate, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has now halted all executions for the rest of the year and ordered what he calls a comprehensive third-party review.

Cornell University has agreed to an independent investigation into how the school handled an alleged sexual assault case from 2024. CNN gained access to a statement the accuser gave the university police about the night she claims several members of a fraternity assaulted her. Our Brynn Gingras has more on this in another new document raising more questions in that investigation.

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BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More information is coming out that really just raises more questions about what happened in this investigation and how did authorities come to the conclusion they came back in 2024 as this investigation has since reopened as of recently. Now we know about two separate documents, and let me separate the two for you. We know about a transcript that WCBS, our local CNN affiliate, says that they obtained -- obtained. It's not clear what this is a transcript of, or what exactly it came

from, what kind of report it came from. Essentially, we know it's an interview of Jane Doe talking to police, and in this transcript, WCBS says Jane Doe says, "I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped."

Now there's a separate document that CNN has obtained, and that is a six-page written statement given to police by Jane Doe back in 2024 that the district attorney says they had in their possession back then and used that to determine whether or not they were going to press any charges, which we know they didn't. It is very detailed, that six-page written statement.

It talks about how Jane Doe essentially says she was aware at the time of being extremely intoxicated when she was inside that fraternity. That she consented to some initial sexual activity that night, but as the night went on and the encounters became more like an assault, she wasn't consenting. She couldn't consent because that she was so heavily intoxicated, and she believes that she was raped.

Now, again, the DA says they're in possession of that written statement. They say they're not in possession of this transcript that our affiliate says that they have. Now, whether or not they were in possession of that would change the outcome of this case, it's unclear. But the DA says basically they're going to get to the bottom of this of why they didn't seem to have all the information that is now being reported at this point.

Cornell says they gave all the information to the DA's office, and but again, again, just raises more questions of who knew what, when? Why was this not more thoroughly investigated? Why was Jane Doe not interviewed more times than just these reports that are coming out now?

[04:45:00]

And it really just confirms that there is such distrust in both sides of who was a part of this system that is really you know having people question not only you know in the media and in the public, but also on campus as well.

So, we're continuing to ask those questions, but in statements from separate sides again, they are both saying that they each kind of did their part in making sure everybody had the right information before coming to the conclusion of not pressing charges. And now it seems like that might not be the case, but it's unclear what was shared and what wasn't. Brynn Gingras. Back to you.

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ABDELAZIZ: Earlier, I spoke with Attorney and Legal Affairs commentator Areva Martin about those two specific documents. Since the district attorney says he had not received a copy of the transcript, I asked why couldn't he be compel or compel Cornell rather to hand it over. Here's a part of our conversation.

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AREVA MARTIN, ATTORNEY & LEGAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: There appears to be such a colossal institutional failure. You literally have the Cornell University, its police department pointing the fingers at the District Attorney's office, and the District Attorney's office pointing the finger back at Cornell University and the simple, you know, question of how come you two institutions can't get together and share the critical information needed to do a transparent investigation?

You have this District Attorney going on television up until I think today, he said he's no longer doing media interviews, but he was on TV doing interviews. And yeah, why wasn't he at Cornell University getting all of the materials needed to do an investigation? This is again, I just go back to this colossal institutional failure that has obviously impacted this victim and could impact others.

ABDELAZIZ: So, you're describing it as an institutional failure, and you're clearly asking the same questions that we are. But is this also a legal failure? I want to break this down here. So, you have Cornell's campus police. They exercise powers that are granted by the state, but are employed and supervised by the university, what outside oversight exists to ensure a sexual assault investigation is thorough, in that all relevant evidence reaches prosecutors, and who holds campus police accountable if that process fails?

MARTIN: Well, what we're hearing is that this police department, this Cornell University Police Department, has the jurisdiction over any alleged crimes that happen on that campus, and that they have the same powers as the Ithaca Police Department. Now, we also just heard the Ithaca Police Department saying that they wish they have been notified. They wish they have been brought in to this process.

Ultimately, we have the governor of the state of New York, who's now stepped up, intervened, and has requested and Cornell apparently has agreed to a third-party, independent investigation. But again, how come that police department, the Ithaca Police Department, how come they weren't notified of this? I think again is a part of what hopefully comes out of this independent investigation.

ABDELAZIZ: So, an independent investigation, but that will take time. So, the other question is, how has this 2024 statement, the one that she gave in November to campus police, if it is not brought to light, or if that interview is different, and again, her lawyer, Jane Doe's lawyer, says it is not dramatically different from her civil lawsuit, how can it affect Jane Doe's pursuit of justice? Does it matter even at this stage, or does the civil lawsuit supersede that 2024 transcript?

MARTIN: Well, I think it's important that we distinguish two things that are happening in parallel time. One is the civil lawsuit that was recently filed. Seven individuals who have been named as defendants, as well as the university as a defendant, and then you have the District Attorney in that county now saying that this entire case will be presented to a grand jury. So, there is both a civil lawsuit that is proceeding through the civil court system, and you have now the reopening of a criminal case by the prosecuting attorney. And in both of these cases, both the six-page statement and the transcript are going to be critical pieces of evidence that will be examined in both tribunals, in both the civil lawsuit as well as the grand jury.

And we've heard this devastating statement in the transcript, where Jane Doe says, without doubt, 100 percent she believes that she was raped. That is. A crucial statement made contemporaneously by Jane Doe shortly after the alleged rape took place.

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[04:50:00]

ABDELAZIZ: Still to come, we'll get a close-up preview of a 19th- century masterpiece by artist William Turner that is set to go on the auction block.

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ABDELAZIZ: Welcome back. A very well-preserved painting by British artist William Turner is expected to fetch a record price at auction in December. The painting called "Rome from Mount Aventine" will be shown in Hong Kong and New York before it goes on sale at Sotheby's here in London. It is currently on display in Rome, where our Stefano Pozzebon got a very close-up look.

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STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you look at this painting close enough, you can actually see William Turner's fingerprint, nearly two centuries after he left it there, and that's not even the only trace of him. There are also marks from his palette knife, and even hair from his paintbrush still caught in the paint. That is because "Rome from Mount Aventine" has survived in extraordinary conditions.

[04:55:00]

In its nearly 200-year history, it's never been restored. Turner painted it in the 1830s after studying this view from Rome, which has quite changed since Turner's time. It was originally commissioned by his friend Hugh Munro, and then in 1878, a future British Prime Minister bought it as a wedding gift for Hannah de Rothschild.

It stayed in the family until 2014, when it was sold for almost $50 million, setting a record for Turner that still stands today. It's back in Rome before going under the hammer again in December, and this time, Sotheby's expect to fetch more than $66 million.

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ABDELAZIZ: And we're getting a first look at giant panda, five-year- old Fu Shuang, enjoying a snack and looking around her new home in Atlanta. She arrived at the zoo earlier this week, with a six-year-old male, Ping Ping. Zoo Atlanta says both pandas are eating well and adjusting more each day. They're part of Beijing's long tradition of panda diplomacy.

And after a week of fierce competition, Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve has crowned a winner of this year's Fat Bear Week. Bear 89 earned more than 100,000 votes to take the title. The contest works to raise awareness of the park's brown bear population by pitting the heaviest specimens against one another in a March-Madness-style elimination bracket. But Bear 89 is not just a chunky star. He's a furry nepo baby, known as Backpack, because as a young cub, he rode around on the back of his mom, who was the 2019 winner of Fat Bear Week. Talk about body positivity. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Salma Abdelaziz. CNN Headline Express is coming up next.

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