Tangle - The FlyDubai plane attack.

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

On Wednesday, the copilot of a FlyDubai commercial flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv allegedly attacked the plane’s captain and attempted to crash the aircraft in what Israeli officials have deemed an attempted terrorist attack. The captain, Smit Machchhar of India, was stabbed multiple times and seriously wounded but managed to open the cockpit door, allowing crew and passengers to detain the copilot. Two pilots on board as passengers then took control of the aircraft and landed it safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The attacker has been identified as an Omani national and is currently in custody in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).Ad-free podcasts are here!Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!Election season is here.As we gear up for election season, we need your support. Our team is now 13 people strong, and we’re preparing for the biggest few months of the year. You’re already supporting us as a Tangle member (thank you), but you can still drop a donation, follow us on Instagram, subscribe to our YouTube channel, or simply forward this email to friends and family and tell them to sign up.You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Take the survey: What’s your view on the incident? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast written by: Isaac Saul and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, back again today as your new Shaman. I'm ready to guide you through the weird, wacky world of stupid internet reactions. We're going to dive into the attempted hijacking of a fly Dubai plane headed to Israel and two big stories, we'll call them for now, that came out of it. Plus, a reader question about polls motivating voters' decision

and a feel-good story about one man's mission to improve New York's basketball courts. Joining me on the show today is Senior Editor Will Kayback. I'm going to pass it to him for today's main topic, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac. All right, let's get into today's quick hits. Number one, the Supreme Court began its new term, hearing arguments in a case centered on efforts by the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, to sue two energy companies for damages related to the costs of climate change. The court is considering whether federal law blocks the city and county from bringing its suit. Number two, former representative Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, the longest serving Republican. Speaker of the House, died at 84. In 2015, Haster pleaded guilty to financial crimes related to efforts to cover up allegations that he had sexually abused boys as a high school wrestling coach

decades earlier. Number three, Paramount Skydance finalized its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Number four, President Donald Trump said he will no longer use government funds to pay for national television ads promoting his presidency and will instead use funds from his super PAC. And finally, number five, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced that President Trump approved a recommendation to execute a former Army major by U.S. Army firing squad, which would be the first U.S. military execution since 1961. The man killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood.

New details tonight about the Omani Fly Dubai pilot, who allegedly attacked his co-pilot but with an axe last week. Sources tell CNN that the suspect likely wanted to crash the plane with more than 170 passengers into Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport, the country's main international hub, with an untold thousands of commuters on the ground. We're also learning that Fly Dubai failed to reach out to the pilot's previous employer before hiring him.

On Wednesday, the co-pilot of a Fly Dubai commercial flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv allegedly attacked the plane's captain, and attempted to crash the aircraft in what Israeli officials have deemed an attempted terrorist attack. The captain, Smit Machar of India, was stabbed multiple times and seriously wounded, but managed to open the cockpit door, allowing crew and passengers to overpower and detain the co-pilot. Two pilots flying as passengers on the flight then took control of the aircraft and landed it safely in Tabook, Saudi Arabia. The attacker has been identified as an Omani national and is currently in custody, in the United Arab Emirates.

During the attack, the Boeing 737 Max aircraft was subjected to extreme forces that exceeded its operational limits. The plane descended at a 39-degree angle, compared with a three-degree angle in a standard descent, and fell 17,400 feet in 92 seconds. When the other pilots on board managed to regain control, the aircraft lost part of its tail rudder, causing partial loss of control. The pilots kept a plane airborne for a proximity. one hour before landing at the Tobuk airport.

A preliminary investigation has reportedly found that the co-pilot intended to take control of the aircraft and crash it into Israel's Ben-Gurian International Airport. Reuters also reported that the suspect operated a flight to Tel Aviv earlier this year with a similar goal of hijacking and crashing the aircraft, but abandoned the plan for unknown reasons. Law enforcement officials said he had been suspended from flying by Oman Air in 2024 after he was found in possession of extremist materials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said intelligence officials determined that the co-pilot

had undergone, quote, Islamist radical indoctrination, but his precise motive is still unknown. Separately, the United Arab Emirates' Attorney General confirmed that the hijacking was an attempted terrorist attack. Today, we have views from the right, left, and Israeli writers, followed by executive editor Isaac Thal's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Here's what the right is saying. Some on the right say the attempted attack underscores the broader state of play in the Middle East. Others criticize the media's coverage of the hijacking.

In the free press, Douglas Murray suggested Israel is winning. Most of all, the attack and the successful averting of what could have been a mass casualty terrorist event is a reminder of something bigger, that Israel and the West remain at war with Islamic radicals, and that it is a war we are winning. To some people, this reflection might seem counterintuitive. Each day's news is filled with declarations of defeat. The online world is filled with shrill declarations that Israel has lost this war. With the hindsight of three years of war, we can now see more clearly how complete the devastation of Iran's plans has been.

Peace by peace, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu took apart the Iranian axis. What happened in the skies above Saudi Arabia on Wednesday morning stands as a metaphor for three years of war. The Israelis saw an existential threat, took matters into their own hands, and decided their own course. In the hill, Beckett Adams argued that caution is selective among the news media. When it comes to crisis events, a cautious pose is always the smart play for a news organization. You never want to get ahead of the story to prioritize being first ahead of being right. But the care shown on this foiled hijacking story could not contrast more sharply with the Western press's regular mishandling of allegations against Israel.

The New York Times has, in particular, racked up a rather ignoble record in this area. The Times was among the first in October 2023 to misreport that Israel had bombed the Al-Ali Arab Hospital, killing 500. Israel did no such thing. The rocket was misfired by the terrorist group Islamic Jihad, according to a U.S. assessment and it did not even hit the hospital. It's good, heartwarming even, that the Times handled last week's foiled hijacking with care and caution,

but where is the same seriousness when the allegations are directed at Israel? Now here's what the left is saying. Some on the left suggest the incident threatens already tenuous Middle East relationships. Others praise the pilot and passengers for their quick action and resolve. In the Atlantic, Graham Wood said the incident has huge implications. Whether today's near disaster was terrorism or merely attempted mass murder depends on the attacker's motive. Either way, it's a public relations catastrophe for Fly Dubai.

Since the United Arab Emirates opened diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020, the airline has connected the two countries with few interruptions, even for acts of war and terror. One possible political motive for the Fly Dubai incident would be to strain and punish the relationship between those two countries. The next step will involve determining whether the pilot acted alone, not a good look for fly Dubai to have suicidal or terrorist pilots, or at someone's behest. The latter possibility could, if confirmed, have serious implications depending on who directed the attack.

Many may have a motive, Sunni jihadist, Al-Qaeda, or the Islamic State, Hamas, and of course Iran in its proxies. The Mayday moment will have huge implications if any of these groups are involved. In the foreword Dan Perry wrote, For a few terrifying minutes, Israelis were heroes again. There is something refreshing about the simplicity of the story. The passengers were confronted with a danger that required immediate action, and some of them acted.

Israelis watching the story unfold saw a familiar national trait emerge in circumstances where slogans had very little use. For Israelis, that quality has long been part of the national mythology. The country was built around the idea that it's people would have to improvise their way through circumstances that seemed to offer very little room for error. Sadly, much of the world has encountered a very different Israeli stereotype in recent years. Israelis have increasingly become symbols and arguments about war, occupation, nationalism, and international law. Then came the fly Dubai flight.

Israelis have been seen increasingly through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and sometimes through the actions of the government that happens to represent them. plane full of passengers offers a different perspective. And now here's what Israeli writers are saying. Some Israeli writers celebrate the collaboration between Israelis and Arabs as heroic. Others criticize the Israeli government for letting the Omani pilot pass through security measures. In JNS, Fiamma Nirenstein said, Heroic Israelis avert a new 9-11.

If there had not been ordinary Israelis on vacation aboard that plane, with their determined and well-organized will to survive, the world today might have been facing a new 9-11 in Tel Aviv. The alleged attacker was Omani. Oman has close relations with Iran, which maintains a strategic interest in the country because of its position overlooking the Strait of Hormuz and the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

The captain that the co-pilot allegedly attacked, by contrast, is the citizen of the United Arab Emirates, a friendly Arab country that signed the Abraham Accords with Israel. The contrast could hardly have been sharper. An alleged attacker apparently seeking destruction and an emiradi crew working alongside Israeli passengers to save lives. The passengers fought. The cabin crew helped them.

Other pilots took control. Arabs and Israelis together prevented a catastrophe. In the Jerusalem Post, Ben Kasput wrote, Our security agencies failed miserably. A major failure occurred here, a massive one. A pilot, one whom almost... Amman grounded for becoming radicalized and whom Morocco barred from flying due to his extremist Islamist views, found himself flying hundreds of Israelis to Israel.

The Mossad has no way of knowing about every single jihadist who decides to kill Jews, provided that individual isn't linked to an organized group or acting on orders from somewhere. If that is indeed the case, the Mossad bears less responsibility here. And yet an Omani pilot deemed dangerous by the Omanis themselves should not be flying to Israel without that information coming to the attention of Israeli authorities. Wherever Israeli sites take off from, there are always Israeli security personnel responsible for perimeter security. They operate alongside a deep intelligence support, cooperation with local security forces, vetting of anyone coming into contact with passenger security, and so on.

They were there, and yet it happened. All right, that is it for the views from the right-left and Israeli writers, so now I'm going to pass it over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for the left, the right, and some Israeli writers are saying, which brings me to my take. As news broke of the attempted terrorist attack on the fly Dubai plane, two other stories broke with it. First was a controversy over how the story was reported. Prominent pundits, many on the right, criticized the New York Times tweet

early on the morning of the attempted hijacking, which read, quote, breaking news. A plane flying from Dubai to Israel was diverted after an altercation between the pilot and co-pilot, Israeli officials said, end quote. Other outlets had similarly ambiguous language. The BBC reported that an Israel-bound flight diverted after fight between pilots. CTV news headline their coverage, commercial flight from Dubai diverted briefly raising hijacking concerns and prompting Israel to scramble warplanes. critics suggested this was an effort to obscure or downplay an attempt on Israeli lives, an obfuscation that might reinforce the dangers that Israelis face daily. The second controversy unfolded days later.

Conspiracy theories exploded predominantly on the left, suggesting the entire incident was a false flag. Perhaps the goal was to inspire national unity, or somehow make Netanyahu look good, or maybe use the event as an excuse for more national security. Anna Casparian, who was a featured guest at last, last year's Tangle Live event in Irvine, California, suggested that it was weird how just yesterday Netanyahu was saying that the Iranians are going to carry out some sort of attack against Israel,

and everyone was saying, uh-oh, here comes the false flag. She offered that she was not suggesting it was a false flag because she doesn't know yet, but she thinks it's fishing. Her co-host, Sanguiger, was less suggestive using a segment to explain what actually happened with the fly Dubai plane, how these things are done and why it might be a false flag. He went on to suggest that they might have found a mentally ill guy and allowed him to get on the plane with a knife. Both narratives bothered me for different reasons. For starters, I don't think there was anything wrong with the New York Times tweet.

A lot of people don't seem to understand how original reporting is done. When news breaks of a plane being diverted and social media posts explode with claims of a struggle in the cockpit or a hijacking, an outlet like the New York Times is not going to report that without independent corroboration. Their job as the paper of record is to be careful, to be sure, not to amplify internet rumors. They'd never put something in print without at least getting some sources of their own. Also, the Times reporting was not obscuring anything. As I documented on X, the offending social media posts linked to a live page with updates.

Before and after that tweet went out, the Times updated the story on that page, including comments from Israeli officials and the Prime Minister's office discussing and attempted hijacking. It also made subsequent posts on X as it confirmed more details. Even under cynical reasoning, this particular criticism is nonsensical. If the Times could have been the first paper to report a hijacking of a plane full of Israelis to its audience, a story that would drive a boom in page views, subscribers, and citations, it would have. The worst thing you can say about the paper end its journalists, which is a legitimate criticism is that it has blasted out headlines like the claim Israel killed 500 people bombing

a Palestinian hospital based solely on Palestinian sources. I wrote an entire article criticizing the shoddy work of the hospital attack story and predictably the Times story completely fell apart. But the lesson from that incident isn't to report faster or report more confidently based on potentially biased sources. The lesson is to be more careful to slow down and get it right. That's what the Times did here, and nothing about its reporting was unethical or wrong. The other narrative, the one propagated by Casparian and Uyghur, was deeply disappointing. I like Anna, and I think she offers a lot of value as an independent political voice. But here, she offered an example of how deranged commentary about Israel has become.

Casparian and Uyghur essentially speculated this attack was a false flag because it closely followed Netanyahu's comments. Others are holding up even thinner evidence. Some ex-users claim that the details of the story, from passengers getting into the cockpit, to oxygen mass not deploying, to the pictures of cups of water indicate a conspiracy. These claims give off jet fuel can't melt steel beams so 9-11 was an inside job vibes, and they are all easily debunkable. The story here is simple, even if it makes many people who distrust Israel very uncomfortable. There are people in the Middle East who want to kill Israelis and Jews. Examples of this kind of terrorism, again. against Israelis and Jews are copious, and the fly Dubai example comes with copious videos, images, and firsthand accounts of bloodied pilots and passengers rushing the cockpit. All these details corroborate the story being reported not just in Israel or the United States, but across the globe. While information is still limited and in some cases vague,

reporting about this co-pilot is pretty damning so far. He is an Omani National, who was previously suspended from flying on Amman Air because he was deemed a security risk, after being found in possession of extremist materials. His deleted social media posts pointed to intense religious conservatism and misogyny, ABC News reported. Also, he took an axe to his co-pilot and tried to down a plane with 174 passengers on board. An investigation will give us concrete details about what motivated the attack, but I don't think we need to pretend the pieces are hard to put together. If anything doesn't add up here, it's how Fly Dubai allowed this pilot in the cockpit at all.

The UAE's Attorney General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi, read, not an Israeli official, said on Saturday that it was an attempted act of terrorism. The attacker is an Ammani national. Amman's population is 95% Muslim. Israel is currently in live conflicts with several Muslim-majority nations throughout the region. The precise motivations will be fleshed out in an investigation, but I feel comfortable speculating that Islamic extremism, the conflicts in the Middle East, where some combination of the two will be involved. It is self-evident who the targets were. In July, I wrote about how conspiracy theories are getting dumber. I'd argue that both of these narratives add to the list of examples I shared in that piece. The New York Times is not avoiding front-page news it could break to the world because it's scared to make Israel look like victims.

And Israel does not need to create false flag operations endangering its own citizens to create a mirage of danger. The danger is real, and Israelis live it every day. All right, that is it for my take. I'm going to send it over to managing editor Ari Weitzman, who is answering a question today from our audience, and then he'll pass it to Will Kayback for the rest of the pod. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one.

Peace. We'll be right back after this quick break. Today's reader question comes from a Reddit user with the name frantically farting, who asks, my girlfriend and I, we're talking about a recent election, and she said, I'd like to vote for this candidate, but they aren't polling well so or vote for so-and-so who is ahead.

And it made me think, do polls sway voters' decisions in a meaningful way? This seems problematic for a number of reasons. This is a very astute question from someone with a very erudite name, frantically farting. And it's also a timely one since we're in midterm season. As far back as 1979, researchers have found that voters tend to favor candidates who poll well. More recently, in 2020, researchers at UCLA affirmed this bandwagon effect that voters are biased towards candidates that they think can win. They found this by looking at multi-round French elections from 1958 to 2017 and seeing that voters tended to overwhelmingly support first-round winners,

even when they advanced on small margins. Of course, France's system is very different from ours. Multiple candidates can advance from France's first round, which is similar to the way some of our party primaries work, but rather than participating in disparate voting pools, all French voters take part in each round, meaning extrapolating from there is quite difficult. It is possible that American voters would be happy to punch a ballot for a candidate they are less confident of in the earlier round if they knew they could vote against the other guy in the general election. This bandwagon effect, based on polling may or may not impact voters at scale, it's hard to say for sure, but we do know that impacts a certain influential subset of the electorate, which is donors.

Harvard researchers described this vicious cycle in 2013. A candidate polls well, so donors hoping to curry influence back the winner, which helps that candidate campaign more effectively, which makes the poll well, which attracts donors, etc. We saw this play out very famously in 2016, when Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary for president, partly due to electability concerns. Whether or not voters fall in line with this bandwagon effect,

campaigns and their donors are certainly subject to it themselves. It's one of the many pitfalls to watch for when interpreting campaign polling this election season. That's it for our reader question today, so I'm going to send it back over to will for the rest of the pod. Thanks, Ari. All right, and now we'll finish up with today's Have a Nice Day story. New York City resident Craig Campanella

loves the swish of a maids shot. But one day he noticed frayed nets at the basketball court near his home. When they would deteriorate, they would not be replaced for months. So he started replacing the nylon nets himself. Campanella gave himself a goal of installing 25 nets this year, and he surpassed it in six months. Now he set a new goal of 50 for 2026. Quote, putting nets on hoops isn't going to necessarily solve the world's problems, he said.

But it's something I can do. It's tangible. It makes me smile. and it makes other people in the park smile. So I just do it. The city reporter has this story, and we'll drop the link in today's show notes. All right, that's it for today's edition.

Thanks, as always, for being with us, and we will talk to you tomorrow. Until then, have a great day. And... Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Law. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas.

Our editorial staff is led by managing editor, Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Keeback and associate editors, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.