Modi praises FlyDubai co-pilot credited with preventing disaster as UAE investigates incident
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has praised Capt. Smit Machchhar, the FlyDubai captain credited with intervening to help save the flight from disaster on Wednesday.
“Captain Smit Machchhar has shown the world the highest form of courage. Without fearing for his own life, he fought valiantly and prevented another 9/11 like attack from happening,” Modi said Thursday morning.
The Indian consulate in Dubai said India’s ambassador and consul general in the UAE met with Machchhar’s family members.
“They briefed the family about Captain Machchhar’s health & recovery, conveyed that the Embassy & Consulate are in touch with the UAE authorities, and assured the family of continued support,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates have opened an investigation into the incident involving a FlyDubai flight that was diverted to Saudi Arabia after an altercation in the cockpit, the state news agency WAM reported Thursday.
The UAE attorney general ordered an investigation to establish the circumstances and motives behind the incident and “determine whether it was linked to any terrorist activity or prior planning,” WAM said.
UAE judicial authorities have jurisdiction over the investigation because the aircraft is registered in the UAE and operates under its flag, meaning offenses committed on board are subject to UAE law even when they occur outside the country, the statement said.
The flight took off at 7:05 a.m. local time from Dubai Wednesday, according to Flightradar24.
Tracking data showed the aircraft descended rapidly from 34,000 to 16,000 feet in three minutes.
About 10 minutes after the initial descent, the plane’s squawk code — used by aircraft to communicate with air traffic control — changed to “general emergency.” Seven minutes later, the squawk code changed again, indicating a hijacking or “unlawful interference.”
The aircraft then continued flying at an average altitude of about 15,000 feet until it landed in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, roughly an hour to an hour and a half after the rapid descent began and the emergency signals were sent.
FlyDubai confirmed that the flight “experienced an incident while en route” and landed in Tabuk.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with one of the passengers involved in subduing an attacker during a flight on a FlyDubai plane, after he arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Sept. 30, 2026. (Prime Minister’s Office)
(LONDON) — A man who was among a group of passengers who subdued an attacker on a flight to Tel Aviv on Wednesday was welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he returned to Israel later in the evening.
The prime minister posted a video of meeting the passenger named Yaniv Hayun, who still had blood on his shirt from the encounter.
Yaniv and a group of other passengers aboard FlyDubai Flight 1073 were able to get into the cockpit after an unidentified pilot stabbed the co-pilot, Capt. Smit Machchhar and took control of the plane, Israeli officials said.
The suspect allegedly plummeted the plane in an attempt to crash it and kill everyone aboard, Israeli investigators said.
“And then there was a very sharp nosedive down, something that threw me to where the flight attendants stand in front of the cockpit, I flew sideways,” Yaniv said.
Yaniv said he placed the attacker in a chokehold and pulled him out. And then he quickly went for the plane’s controls and briefly flew the plane.
“And the plane started to level out a bit more, and then the (third) pilot told me he’s taking control from here,” he said.
The third pilot flew it to Saudi Arabia, where the plane landed and the passengers disembarked. Capt. Machchhar was being treated for his injuries and the suspect is in custody, officials said.
“I imagine if we entered the sky of the country it wouldn’t have been good,” Yaniv told the prime minister during their meeting.
Residents carry their belongings along a road heavily covered in mud following flash floods, August 27, 2026 in Trishuli, Nepal. (Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)
LONDON — At least 358 people have been confirmed killed in the massive flash flooding that ravaged the Nepal-Tibet border region on Wednesday, emergency authorities in Nepal and China said. More than 1,300 people remained missing as of Thursday morning, authorities said.
As search and rescue efforts continued in Nepal on Thursday, police there said that at least 358 bodies had been recovered.
At least 826 people — among them 579 tourists, of whom 476 are foreign nationals and 114 Nepali nationals — were still out of contact as of Thursday morning, the Nepal National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said.
Across the border in the Chinese region of Tibet, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday that three people were confirmed killed with 558 others still missing, citing local officials.
The number of those considered missing fluctuated significantly as recovery efforts accelerated. The Nepal Tourism Board said that 63 Americans were among the missing.
The board said on Thursday that two Americans were among a group of 27 foreign tourists rescued from the Timure and Bhotekoshi area of Rasuwa.
The flooding, captured in dramatic video footage, occurred in the northern Rasuwa district, along the border with Tibet, at around 8:40 a.m. local time on Wednesday, authorities said, inundating areas along the Trishuli River, burying some buildings and damaging bridges and roadways.
In a statement, Nepal’s office of the prime minister expressed “deep sorrow” over the loss of life. “Offering heartfelt tribute to all those who lost their lives in this natural disaster, it extends its sincere condolences to the bereaved families and relatives,” the statement shared on social media said.
The prime minister’s office later said search and rescue operations carried out by the Nepali Army would continue through the night.
The State Department said the number of Americans among the missing and otherwise impacted by the floods fluctuated throughout the day on Wednesday.
“The United States extends its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the devastating flash floods in the Rasuwa district of Nepal. Our thoughts are with all those affected by this disaster,” a department spokesperson said in a statement issued later Wednesday.
The spokesperson said the State Department is “closely monitoring the situation and is deploying a disaster response advisor to the region to support response efforts. The Department will also provide $500,000 in assistance through its global award with Catholic Relief Services, supporting emergency shelter, relief items, and water, sanitation, and hygiene assistance to flood-affected communities.”
An Indian spiritual leader and entrepreneur, known as Sadhguru, said in a post to social media that 77 people who were on tours organized by his Isha Foundation were at an immigration center at the Nepal-Tibet border when the floodwaters hit.
The Isha Foundation confirmed to ABC News that 22 of those 77 people were Americans. The organization, which is headquartered in India, also has a base in McMinnville, Tennessee. The group’s coordinator told ABC News the organization has been in touch with family members in the U.S.
Three missing Americans were listed as traveling with a Nepali company called Fishtail Tours and Travel. The agency confirmed to ABC News that three American nationals are among the missing tourists traveling with them.
The flood was reportedly triggered by a landslide about 12 miles northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border post along the Nepal-China frontier, according to Nepal Disaster Management.
A 5.2-magnitude landslide was registered in Nepal on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The seismic activity from the landslide was initially erroneously reported as a 4.4-magnitude earthquake, the agency said. It is unclear what triggered the landslide.
A geophysicist at New York’s Columbia University told ABC News it appeared a landslide in the Himalayas took away a large glacier, or parts of one, in the mountain pass.
ABC News’ Desiree Adib, Somayeh Malekian, Charlotte Gardiner, Shannon Kingston, Joseph Simonetti, Dada Jovanovic, Meghan Mistry and Othon Leyva contributed to this report.
Startup Katalyst Space is teaming up with NASA to try and rescue the Swift telescope using the company’s newly developed robotic spacecraft. (NASA)
(LONDON) — Satellites don’t always stay in orbit. As they get closer to Earth, atmospheric drag can pull them lower and lower until they burn up, with solar activity speeding up the process.
NASA’s Swift Space Observatory is facing that fate — its orbit is decaying, and if left alone, it will be destroyed in a matter of months.
But in a first-of-its-kind mission, Katalyst Space, a startup, is teaming up with NASA to try and rescue Swift using the company’s newly developed robotic spacecraft, LINK.
“This is a historic mission, you know, some would call it the first of its kind, a robotic spacecraft that can go and capture an unprepared satellite,” said Robert Lamontagne, vice president of strategic partnerships at Katalyst Space.
Swift’s original orbit was around 370 miles above the Earth’s surface. But over the years, it’s fallen to less than 250 miles, according to NASA. Now it’s a race against the clock to keep Swift from falling even further and burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.
To save the satellite before time runs out, the Arizona-based company built its 935-pound rescue spacecraft in just 250 days. LINK was designed to physically interact with Swift despite the observatory not being designed for this kind of operation.
“Over the last nine months, we have gone from a clean sheet to a spacecraft that is currently integrated on a rocket, on an airplane ready to go to college for launch,” added Kieran Wilson, the principal investigator for LINK at Katalyst Space. “This is an absolutely unprecedented development timeline for this program.”
If all goes as planned, LINK will be launched into space on Saturday aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, which will be launched from a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar carrier aircraft taking off from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific.
Once in orbit, it will take about three weeks for LINK to rendezvous with and capture the 22-year-old observatory. Over two to three months, the spacecraft will use its thrusters to raise Swift into a more stable orbit. The two will then separate as LINK lowers itself back into Earth’s atmosphere, where it will burn up, keeping it from adding to the rest of the space debris in our orbit.
The hope is that the maneuver will add 10 years to the mission and allow NASA to resume its scientific operations. The space agency had to stop most of the observatory’s scientific operations to reduce drag and slow its descent from orbit.
“No one thought it was going to be possible,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA’s division director for astrophysics. “No one thought we would get as far as we’ve already gotten today.”
The clock is ticking for the $30 million mission to be completed. According to NASA, Swift is currently falling at roughly eight kilometers per month, and the space agency estimates it will drop below 300 kilometers sometime around October.
According to Wilson, at that point, the satellite will be “too low” for the rescue mission to be executed.
A potential blueprint for saving satellites
Earth’s orbit is littered with lots of aging satellites. If the mission is successful, NASA and Katalyst hope it could help establish a blueprint for future satellite rescues so fewer spacecraft are abandoned. Katalyst envisions having a fleet of spacecraft that can repair, refuel and upgrade satellites in need of help.
“Katalyst is here really to kind of mark the end of that throwaway model and the start of a new model where we think the spacecraft operators should no longer be constrained by the silly decisions that were made before launch,” Lamontagne said.
There’s no guarantee the rescue will be successful. Swift wasn’t designed to be grabbed by another spacecraft, and its age could make it vulnerable to damage during the capture.
“We still have to get spacecraft on orbit. We have to operate the spacecraft there successfully. And as we’ve all seen before, that’s a very challenging thing to do,” said Wilson.
“Rendezvous is going to be a challenge. It’s always a technical challenge, but we think we’re ready to handle that,” he added.
NASA says space weather and how the Earth’s atmosphere interacts with the spacecraft could also impact the outcome.
“If my confidence proves true and this team pulls off everything perfectly, the darn sun puffing up the darn atmosphere, at the wrong time,” Domagal-Goldman said. “There are still unknowns, both in terms of the dynamic nature of this part of Earth’s atmosphere, and its response to solar activity that is beyond all of our control.”
The Swift Space Observatory is a NASA satellite built to study gamma-ray bursts, the brightest and most powerful explosions in the universe. Swift uses multiple instruments, including three multiwavelength telescopes that can collect data in visible, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma-ray light. NASA has used it to study black holes, stars, comets and other celestial objects.
“Swift can routinely conduct follow-up with things that go bump in the night within minutes. It really is NASA’s first responder,” said Brad Cenko, Swift’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Launched in 2004, the observatory was supposed to last only two years. But it’s been operating for more than two decades.
“Last year, Swift received five requests from the community to follow up newly discovered sources each and every day. That’s more annual community requests than any other NASA facility,” Cenko added.
