A true hero! Captain Machchhar was severely wounded in an attack by his co-pilot who attempted to crash the aircraft. As the plane dropped thousands of feet, Machchhar fought back despite his injuries. He managed to open the cockpit door which let the passengers subdue the attacker.

Edit:
- It was not just him alone. Massive credit for those who subdued the attacker and to those who took control and landed the aircraft.

New Zealand’s black robin has gone from just five known birds in 1980 to around 350 adults today, making its 2026 Bird of the Year victory an especially fitting celebration.

At its lowest point, only five black robins remained, with just one breeding pair. Conservationists launched an intensive recovery programme, including a pioneering technique of using other bird species to foster-parent black robin eggs and chicks.

Today, all living black robins are descended from the last breeding female, Old Blue. The species now lives on two predator-free islands in the Chatham Islands.

It’s an incredible conservation comeback, but the story isn’t over. The black robin is still classified as critically threatened, and conservationists are working to establish another population and secure more safe habitat.

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/artc-passenger-on-flydubai-flight-the-pilot-was-stabbed-we-saw-blood-we-thought-we-wouldn-t-make-it-out-alive

Chilling testimonies continue to arrive from FlyDubai flight FZ1073 that was diverted Wednesday morning for an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, following a serious incident that occurred in the cockpit.

In a phone interview on i24NEWS' sister Hebrew Channel, Miriam, one of the passengers on the plane, together with her mother Yasmin, who was waiting for her at Ben Gurion Airport, described the moments of terror.

Miriam, who was speaking on the phone while waiting in the airport area in Saudi Arabia, recounted the difficult moments: "About an hour or two before landing, we just started to hear screams from the plane. Someone started screaming... We just heard screams, and they opened the cockpit and saw large amounts of blood, from someone who had simply tried to murder the pilot and stabbed him with a pocketknife. Then the plane lost control."

According to her, the plane completely lost control for several minutes: "We felt that this was it; we were about to crash. I was already screaming 'Shema Yisrael' and saying, 'I can't die, I'm my mother's only daughter, I can't do this to my mom.'"

Miriam says Israeli passengers were the ones who took control of the situation: “Those who ultimately took control of the incident here were Israelis from the plane, who simply neutralized the terrorist. There was also a nurse here, and a doctor who provided first aid to the pilot. And thank God, there were several pilots on the plane, and they sort of took control of the plane, and in the end we made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.”