Eliran Almog, a former Israeli helicopter pilot who now leads an aviation cybersecurity company, said it was “crazy” that FlyDubai Flight 1073 reached the ground safely after a violent attack in the air.

“You can’t imagine what it is like to be in that situation. You see the videos, you hear children screaming, and passengers may not even understand what is happening,” the former Israeli Air Force pilot told News Media.

The aircraft plunged more than 14,000 feet in roughly 30 seconds after its Omani co-pilot, identified as 29-year-old Hamam al-Hammami, allegedly stabbed the pilot, Capt. Smit Machchhar, during the flight.

“The forces acting on the aircraft were enormous, and you essentially believe you are going to die,” Almog said. He added that it was remarkable the plane stayed intact and managed to land despite the damage to its tail.

Although Machchhar suffered serious injuries, officials said he managed to press a button that opened the cockpit door. Israeli passengers then entered the flight deck and restrained al-Hammami. A second FlyDubai crew that was aboard the aircraft took control of the situation and completed an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

“As a pilot, I’m not sure I could have landed that aircraft under those circumstances,” Almog said. He noted that every commercial plane has different controls, landing procedures and operating limits.

Almog, who advises airlines and related businesses on cybersecurity, said the incident underscored the need for rigorous pilot screening that examines both psychological stability and possible political risks.

“We place significant emphasis on a pilot’s personal characteristics. Technical ability and cognitive skills matter, but we also want to know that the pilot is balanced and capable of remaining resilient in extreme circumstances,” he said.

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“Aviation is critical infrastructure, so we need to rethink how pilots are evaluated—not only when they are hired, but throughout their careers. Even experienced pilots need to be assessed with tools that can identify family problems, psychological distress or the development of extreme beliefs that might create a threat. The industry must adopt these practices, and governments and regulators need to act,” he continued.

Several countries, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, are investigating al-Hammami and the FlyDubai episode. In a Thursday interview with Fox & Friends, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the co-pilot had been subjected to “Islamist radical indoctrination.”

President Donald Trump, for his part, suggested that the pilot may have been trained or influenced by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

Almog said broader geopolitical tensions, including the wars continuing across the Middle East, have become one of the aviation industry’s leading security concerns.

“If you ask airlines today about the risks they are most focused on, geopolitical threats are at the top of the list,” he said. “We monitor GNSS and GPS jamming and spoofing, and the activity maps make it possible to see where the conflicts are taking place.”

He also stressed that airlines cannot limit security screening and monitoring to pilots.

“Pilots are not the only people capable of bringing down an aircraft. More than 80% of cybersecurity threats come from insiders, many of whom may not even recognize that their actions create a risk,” Almog said. “That includes cabin crew and maintenance workers. A plane can be endangered by an incorrect fuel balance or faulty maintenance settings. Aviation depends on an intricate supply chain, and psychological screening and background checks should extend to everyone involved in flight operations—not just pilots.”

Almog also commended the passengers’ determination and described Capt. Machchhar’s actions as heroic.

“In the end, a series of circumstances prevented a catastrophe,” he said. “It required extraordinary personal resilience, the bravery of the off-duty Indian pilot who opened the cockpit door, and the presence of two additional FlyDubai pilots who were able to bring the aircraft down safely.”

“As a pilot, I can tell you that isn’t easy. Landing an unfamiliar commercial aircraft type under extreme stress requires specialized training, which is why rigorous screening and continuous support for flight crews are so vital,” he added.

Ken Urker’s sister has launched a furious attack on his former fiancée, Gypsy-Rose Blanchard, after he was found dead at his Louisiana home on his 34th birthday.

Urker and Blanchard began their relationship in 2017, while Blanchard was serving a seven-year prison sentence for her role in the murder of her abusive mother, Claudine “Dee Dee” Blanchard.

Following Urker’s death on Thursday, Blanchard publicly suggested that he may have overdosed and said he had been “relentlessly cyberbullied” before his passing.

But in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail on Friday, Urker’s sister Autumn criticized Blanchard, accusing her of focusing on her public image and the media instead of supporting the grieving family.

“We are disgusted with her statements! She hasn’t even called my mother or any of us yet,” Autumn said.

Urker first contacted Blanchard in 2017 after watching an HBO documentary about her crime, later writing to her in prison.

Urker proposed to Blanchard in 2018 while she remained behind bars, but they ended their relationship several months later. After Blanchard was released on early parole in December 2023, the pair reunited in 2024.

They welcomed their daughter, Aurora Raina, in December 2024, before officially separating again earlier this year.

Their relationship attracted intense scrutiny online, which Autumn said had a damaging effect on her brother.

She alleged that Blanchard was “to blame for his death because all of this started because of her.”

“She had to be in the limelight. She had to be that girl. She didn’t care what it cost other people around her,” Autumn said. “She loved all the attention at the expense of everybody around her.”

“As much hate as she received, she would receive about two times more support and happy comments telling her to keep doing her and ignore the haters,” Autumn alleged. “Except ignoring the haters caused everybody around her to receive death threats and feel uncomfortable.”

Autumn also claimed that Urker told her during their final phone call that he was “terrified” Blanchard would not keep their daughter Aurora, now 21 months old, “safe.” She said he also alleged that Blanchard had “humiliated him.”

According to Autumn, Urker hoped to bring his daughter “back home” to his mother and felt that he had “failed Aurora because of Gypsy.”

Autumn further alleged that Blanchard insisted on having things her way and would scream at Urker when he tried to control her, comparing the behavior to her mother. “Gypsy is not this sweet person,” she said.

By contrast, Autumn described her brother as a “great man” who would love and support people regardless of their struggles. She said he had tried especially hard for Blanchard because that was the kind of person he was.

“My brother was a good father. A good brother. A good son and a good friend. And we were all lucky and blessed to have known him,” she said.

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Blanchard but has yet to hear back.  

Her remarks come after police revealed earlier on Friday that Urker was found dead with syringes, a spoon, a handgun and a ‘brown powdery substance’ nearby.

According to an incident report obtained by The Daily Mail, police discovered him on Thursday ‘cold to the touch,’ lying on his back in bed with ‘what appeared to be’ a blood-splotched paper towel on his left arm.

The handgun was sitting in its holster on Urker’s bedside table beside one syringe and two shot glasses, the document clarified.

Blanchard’s sister-in-law Anita went to church this past Wednesday with Urker. She later informed police that he ‘made comments of being depressed and upset.’

Anita and her husband arrived at Urker’s residence the following day, and called police for a welfare check when Urker failed to open the door. 

Police responded to Anita’s call at Urker’s residence, which is located in the town of Raceland on Bayou Lafourche, about an hour’s drive from New Orleans. They discovered his body on a bed inside. 

Urker’s arms and face were blue when he was found in bed, where he had evidently been ‘for extended period of time,’ according to the incident report. 

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Nothing in the bedroom ‘appeared to be disturbed or moved’ other than the items on the nightstand – the holstered gun, the shot glasses and another syringe.

Anita noted that Urker had gone live on TikTok at around 11pm Wednesday but ‘just had the video going while he was driving without him saying anything.’ 

Thursday evening, as news circulated of his death, Blanchard went public with her suspicion that he had succumbed to an overdose.

‘I don’t know if it was intentional or not. He was not in a good state of mind lately,’ she told People. ‘I’m in disbelief. I can’t think. I’ve screamed until my throat burns.’

In a statement provided Thursday to TMZ, Blanchard said she texted her ex on the day of his death to wish him a happy birthday but never received a reply. 

‘Ken was an amazing father and a man who was deeply loved,’ she began, adding that Urker would ‘forever be my soulmate and my red string, a connection that time, distance, and even death can never erase.’ 

Blanchard said that he went through an ‘unimaginable level of public scrutiny’ while being with her and that the ‘cruelty directed toward him was something no human being should have to endure.’

She noted that the online harassment had a ‘profound impact’ on Urker.

Regarding their daughter, Blanchard vowed to ‘make sure she grows up knowing how deeply her father loved her.’

Blanchard said that she would also ensure her daughter knew ‘who [Urker] was beyond what strangers on the internet chose to say about him.’ 

Blanchard became a household name back in 2015 after she was arrested over her involvement in her mother Dee Dee’s death. 

Blanchard has been a victim of Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, with Dee Dee forcing her to pose as an invalid by remaining in a wheelchair at all times in public.

Dee Dee shaved Blanchard’s head and kept her drugged to convince the world that her daughter had muscular dystrophy and was battling leukemia.

But the warped relationship  between mother and daughter came to an end when Blanchard’s boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, crept into their home in Springfield, Missouri, and stabbed Dee Dee to death on June 10, 2015. 

Blanchard pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and spent nearly 10 years in prison before being released in December 2023 after being granted an early parole. 

While in prison, she bonded with Urker after he sent her a letter, and they started corresponding. 

Things soon turned romantic, and he went on to propose in 2018.

But after the Hulu miniseries The Act, which starred Joey King as Gypsy and Patricia Arquette as her mother, premiered a few months later and put an intense spotlight on Gypsy’s story, she admitted in her memoir that Ken couldn’t handle the sudden wave of attention. 

Blanchard subsequently met and married another man, Ryan Anderson. They broke up after a short union and she reunited with Urker.  

Following their reunion, Urker looked back on how they reconnected while speaking to People.

‘The very first weekend of April [2024] is when I came to visit her for the first time after she had gotten out. We spent that weekend together and had an incredible time,’ he said.

Their renewed connection was strong enough that they made plans to meet again a month later to attend a jazz festival together.

‘Then shortly after that, we realized we were going to have a baby,’ Urker added. 

Terrifying video shows the moment gunfire broke out inside a crowded Los Angeles nightclub near a college campus, sending panicked partygoers rushing for safety. Two young people were killed in the shooting.

The footage, obtained by The California Post, captures revelers dancing to rap music beneath purple lights before two thunderous shots suddenly echo through the club.

The festive scene quickly descended into chaos as terrified guests sprinted toward the exits, scrambling out of the packed venue.

A man and a woman, both believed to be between 18 and 25 years old, died in the Friday night shooting at Artist Lounge, the Los Angeles Police Department told The Post.

The nightclub is in the University Plaza shopping center near California State University, Northridge, in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.

Police officers were already at the shopping center after responding to complaints about the loud party when the gunfire erupted.

Officers rushed into the club and found the two victims dead at the scene. Neither victim was conscious or breathing.

The motive remains unknown. Police described the suspected gunman as a Hispanic male but did not provide additional identifying information.

A witness told KTLA that the shooter appeared to deliberately aim at two people before accidentally hitting another person.

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“It all happened so fast,” the witness said. “This guy pulls out a gun from his waist and aims at one person – boom – then he turned around to get another guy, but he totally missed and got someone else in the back.”

After the shooting, numerous partygoers fled the building as police flooded the shopping plaza and secured the area.

Dozens of people were detained outside the complex, although it was not immediately clear why. Investigators may have been attempting to locate or identify the shooter.

Aerial video broadcast by KABC showed handcuffed individuals being questioned by officers inside an extensive crime scene spanning several businesses in the shopping center.

No arrests had been announced as of the latest update.

The LAPD’s investigation into the deadly Los Angeles nightclub shooting remains ongoing.

California State University, Northridge, a public university in the San Fernando Valley, has an enrollment of more than 35,000 students.

Austin McCollum, a young politician once viewed as a rising Republican star, has been detained over allegations involving his estranged wife, who previously told a court that he expected her to be a “Proverbs 31” wife.

McCollum, 35, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of felony stalking and violating a restraining order obtained by his estranged wife, Ragen, 34, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by the Daily Mail.

He was booked into Benton County Jail in Bentonville, Arkansas. McCollum had previously faced charges of aggravated assault and domestic abuse involving Ragen, allegations he has denied.

In court filings describing the alleged abuse, Ragen said her former husband punched her in the face, instructed her to kiss other men and pressured her to smoke marijuana before sex so she would not “flinch” during the encounter.

The latest arrest followed allegations that McCollum breached Ragen’s restraining order by appearing at their children’s school, staring at her in the hallways and looking through the windows of her car, according to the affidavit.

Ragen previously told the court that McCollum, who served in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 2017 until resigning amid the scandal, wanted her to be a “Proverbs 31” wife.

The phrase appears to refer to a biblical passage that describes a wife devoted to caring for her husband and children.

The allegations emerged against the backdrop of what had appeared to be an idyllic family life in a $900,000 modern farmhouse in Arkansas’ rural Bible Belt. McCollum and his wife, who works at Walmart’s headquarters, lived there with their four-year-old daughter, Eliza, and two-year-old son, Bankston, as his political profile continued to grow.

McCollum remains the Republican nominee for judge in Benton County, Arkansas, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He was granted bail Thursday afternoon and has since returned to his $1 million bachelor pad in Bentonville.

Ragen was granted a restraining order against McCollum in August. The order bars him from coming within 1,500 feet of her home, workplace or their children’s schools.

The case returned to the spotlight this week after prosecutors accused McCollum of violating those restrictions.

A new filing by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Robinson alleges that McCollum went to the children’s school knowing Ragen would be there.

According to the probable cause affidavit obtained by the Mail, Ragen had told McCollum she planned to attend an open house at Shiloh Christian School in Springdale from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on September 22.

Although McCollum had registered for a separate tour at 11 a.m., prosecutors allege that he arrived early in an apparent attempt to intercept his ex-wife.

The affidavit states that he arrived shortly after 10 a.m., found Ragen’s car in the parking lot and looked inside the vehicle.

He then entered the school with a staff member and began “looking down the hallway where Ragen was standing with a group,” according to the filing.

McCollum drove away from the campus at about 10.30am, but returned less than 30 minutes later, when he began to ‘circle the parking lot’ against the flow of traffic. 

He then parked in a spot where ‘Ragen would have to walk past him to get to her car,’ according to the affidavit. 

Ragen was aware that her ex was apparently stalking her, and she asked an armed security guard from the school to walk her to her car, the legal document states.

Six days later, McCollum allegedly turned up at their son’s preschool, called Wee Friends School, around pickup time.

A teacher at the school said she saw the former politician staring at the entranceway as he drove past at about 5pm. 

‘She said it wasn’t a one-time glance, but a continuous look at the school entrance as he drove in the opposite direction,’ the court filing reads.

Ragen was so disturbed by the apparent stalking, the affidavit asserts, that she ‘kept her children out of school’ the following day. 

According to prosecutors, McCollum was spotted by a friend of Ragen’s walking past Wee Friends on September 29 at about 7am. The preschool was in the opposite direction to where McCollum lived.

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McCollum is also accused of breaching the protection order by calling Ragen’s cell phone on August 19, though his attorney reported this incident as an accident and no further action was taken. 

Police interviewed McCollum about the alleged breaches.

He told investigators that he did not pull up to the Shiloh Christian School Open House until after 11am – though prosecutors claim in the affidavit that surveillance footage contradicts this.

The former politician added that he allegedly did not see Ragen during his visit to the school. 

McCollum ‘wished to remain silent’ when he was quizzed about driving past Wee Friends School on September 28, according to the filing.  

The former politician confirmed that he did walk past Wee Friends the following morning, but said he had been attending an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting at the church connected to the school. 

However, according to the church, there were no such meetings held at 7am, prosecutors wrote in the affidavit.

The lawyer who filed the latest claims, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Joshua Robinson, has asked the judge to place McCollum in custody to prevent him from stalking Ragen. 

McCollum was first arrested on August 1 at his $900,000 family home on charges including aggravated assault and domestic abuse.

He has pleaded not guilty to each count, and filed a civil countersuit against his ex-wife for allegedly taking marijuana in front of their children – a claim she denies. It is illegal to take the drug recreationally in Arkansas. 

Ragen filed for divorce on August 7 and her subsequent allegations made against McCollum do not make for easy reading.

At an August 25 hearing seeking the order of protection she later won, Ragen told a court she was so frightened of her husband that she had to smoke marijuana before they had sex with him to ensure she wouldn’t ‘flinch.’

Ragen also told the court how McCollum had ‘directed’ encounters with other men, including one occasion where he told her to ‘make out’ with a guy at a bar.

She made the allegations when questioned about whether she had been faithful by McCollum’s lawyer Lindsey Nicole Schmeidler at an earlier order of protection hearing, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

In her divorce complaint obtained by the Mail, Ragen alleged that McCollum had made her life ‘intolerable’ by committing ‘indignities’ that made it ‘impossible’ for them to continue living together.

Ragen told of how McCollum wrote a suicide note using his state representative stationery on February 23, in which he asked her to tell their children that he loved them. He did not follow through with his alleged threat.

Her petition for the order of protection, which was filed on August 6 and obtained by the Mail, detailed a catalog of alleged physical violence and psychological torment.

Ragen claimed McCollum offered to help her kill herself while she was suffering from post-partum depression and that he had dragged her around by her hair.

In her complaint, Ragen claimed that Austin once punched and choked her so violently that there was ‘blood everywhere,’ before detailing a series of other alleged attacks, including one incident where he allegedly ran her over in front of the children.

The alleged abuse unfolded behind closed doors, often after the couple came home from luxury weddings and balmy vacations, according to the court petition.

McCollum resigned from his position as state representative at the behest of Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders on August 1, with a special election now set to take place in November.

He is currently still running unopposed to become a Benton County justice of the peace in November, after winning the March 3 Republican primary.

The Daily Mail has reached out to prosecutors as well as Austin and Regan McCollum for comment. 

Businesses in Fresno’s Tower District are calling for action from city officials and law enforcement as a series of shootings continues to raise concerns in the popular nightlife area.

The latest deadly incident occurred last weekend, when 28-year-old Tyrone Miles was shot and killed near Olive and Linden avenues outside MIA Nightclub after nearby bars had closed. Security footage showed a group of people arguing before a gunshot was heard.

The shooting came just 48 hours after another fatal incident in central Fresno. Authorities said 25-year-old Muhammad Muhtaraam-Conley was shot during an argument outside Bulldog Liquor in the 400 block of East Shaw Avenue.

Gunfire also broke out in the Tower District last month, sending one man to the hospital. In May, 27-year-old Charles Muhammad was arrested in connection with a separate shooting.

Local business owners said the violence is hurting the district’s nightlife economy while leaving customers and merchants on edge.

“To see it at your front door, in a place that’s beloved by the community to see this type of violence happen, it’s very disheartening and discouraging to the city as well as the Tower District,” Lewis Everek, owner of Everek Hospitality Group, told ABC 30.

Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias, who represents part of the Tower District, said law enforcement would continue focusing on criminal activity in the area.

Visitors should expect a heightened police presence during the district’s busiest weekend hours. Arias said between 20 and 40 officers could be patrolling the area at any given time.

“If you misbehave and you’re responsible for fights, for a shooting, or any type of activity, whether it’s in Tower District or Downtown Fresno, you will be arrested, you will be prosecuted, you will be spending some time in jail,” Arias said.

Fresno police said no arrests had been made in Miles’ killing as of Saturday morning. Detectives are asking witnesses with information about the shooting, as well as anyone with cellphone video from around the time of the incident, to come forward.

Police identified 26-year-old Malik Upshaw and 20-year-old Sakilian Drum as suspects in the Muhtaraam-Conley shooting. Drum turned himself in, while Upshaw remains at large.