A FlyDubai flight headed toward Tel Aviv, Israel, nearly crashed on Wednesday after its Omani co-pilot allegedly stabbed the captain while shouting “Allahu achbar” and took control of the plane carrying roughly 180 passengers, largely Israeli. If not for the heroism of those on board, an untold number of lives could have been lost in the attempted hijacking. It’s a pretty straightforward story, yet the media butchered it.
The Washington Post described the incident as a “midair altercation” that “prompted a hijacking distress signal.” Fox News called it a “fight in cockpit.” The New York Times characterized it as a “clash between pilots.” United Press International’s headline was: “Physical altercation in cockpit forces FlyDubai flight to divert.” The BBC posted on X, “Israel-bound flight diverted after fight between pilots.” The list goes on and on.
Here’s a sentence I’ve never uttered before: CNN actually covered this more honestly than the vast majority of the legacy media. After initially referring to the attack as a “violent incident,” when more information came out, the outlet repeatedly — and more accurately — framed it as a “suspected attempted hijacking.” The same cannot be said for several other major outlets, including and especially the New York Times, which framed the notion that the attack was terrorism-motivated as “far-right.”
This is the same outlet whose headline for a 2015 story about an Israeli being murdered by a group of Palestinians who dropped large rocks on his car from an overpass was, “Jewish Man Dies as Rocks Pelt His Car in West Bank.” That’s like a headline after the Boston Marathon bombing reading: “Spectators Die as Pressure Cookers Explode Near Finish Line.”
After being rightfully called out for its shameful coverage, the New York Times issued a response on X: “Our headlines and live coverage contain all the facts we’re able to confirm as we confirm them. Unlike activists and partisans, we don’t publish speculation or unverified information.” Their defense has two fatal flaws: First, Israel had been saying it was an attempted hijacking for many hours by the time the outlet changed its framing from “clash” to “stabbing.” Second, and most egregiously, the outlet has repeatedly published speculation or unverified information — particularly when it disadvantages Israel. They ran a bogus piece earlier this year accusing the Jewish state of training dogs to rape Palestinians and never issued a retraction, and 10 days after the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks, the outlet ran a story falsely claiming Israel killed 500 people in a Gaza hospital bombing. For the latter story, they cited the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry. It’s quite telling that they’d take Hamas’s word as gospel, but wouldn’t even call Wednesday’s incident a “suspected” hijacking attempt. And the New York Times says it’s not like “activists and partisans” — give me a break!
The New York Post also deserves props for calling Wednesday’s incident a “suspected terror attack” and asking the important questions, such as: How did an Omani — a man from a country that has no diplomatic relations with Israel — end up as a co-pilot on the Flydubai flight? The airline’s agreement with Israel stipulates that only pilots holding passports from countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel can land in the country.
If successful, the attack could have been at the very least the second most deadly act of terrorism against Israel in history, only behind the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, which saw over 1,000 murdered. The 180 souls on board dwarf the number of people killed in the 1978 bus hijacking dubbed the “Coastal Road massacre,” in which 38 lives were lost. And if the Omani co-pilot happened to crash into a population-dense target, hundreds, if not thousands, of people may have been killed.
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One might imagine that the media, the supposed bastion of objectivity that they are, would present the matter with the level of alarm and urgency it deserves. Instead, because the victims are Israeli and the attacker is Middle Eastern, it’s downplayed. For those paying attention to the legacy coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, this should come as no surprise. Unsubstantiated claims of Israeli wrongdoing are met with “Israel accused of war crimes” headlines, but when Arabs launch an attack, the “terrorist” label is often softened with “militant.”
The questions the media should be asking right now are: Was the Omani co-pilot an Iranian sleeper cell? If so, how many others are there? We know Iran has targets mapped out in America — are the sleeper cells already here, too? Let’s not wait for the next “midair altercation” to find out.