FlyDubai hero pilot recounts cockpit attack; Letitia James takes over Cornell case

The FlyDubai captain who fought off his co-pilot speaks out from the hospital, saying he “couldn’t let everybody else die.”

Plus, Christa Pike remains in critical condition after surviving two lethal-injection doses, as her lawyers push to have her sentence commuted.

And Letitia James takes over the Cornell University sexual-assault case after New York’s governor says she’s lost faith in the local district attorney.

These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Friday, Oct. 2, 2026.

‘I could not let everybody else die’: FlyDubai captain speaks from hospital

The FlyDubai captain, who was badly injured while fighting off his co-pilot as their passenger jet plunged toward the ground Wednesday, has spoken out for the first time since the incident.

In a video call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday morning, Captain Smit Machchhar described the moment he was on the cockpit floor, severely wounded and still being attacked.

The plane rapidly lost altitude, and Machchhar said he knew he had to get back up.

He told Modi, “I was fighting for my life,” but added, “I couldn’t let everybody else die.”

Machchhar managed to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers to rush in and subdue the co-pilot. Reserve pilots on board then helped regain control of the jet.

The flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia with 174 people on board.

Investigators questioned the suspect, an Omani national, there before transferring them to the United Arab Emirates. They are still working to determine a motive and whether the attack had any connection to terrorism.

Reporters asked President Donald Trump on Thursday whether the suspect could have ties to Iran.

“We’re working on it right now,” Trump said. “They’re being very open with us. I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is yes, but we’re working on it right now.”

No Iran connection has been established.

Machchhar is now recovering at a hospital in Abu Dhabi after suffering what a passenger who treated him described as massive blood loss.

Pike remains in critical condition after failed execution

Convicted murderer Christa Pike is still alive but in critical condition after Tennessee attempted to execute her twice Wednesday night.

Pike’s lawyers said she was receiving “life-saving medical care” at a Nashville hospital Thursday and still don’t know her prognosis.

The 50-year-old has served time on death row for decades for a murder she committed at 18.

Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital Wednesday night and is the only known person to survive after lethal-injection drugs were administered in a U.S. execution.

Now, her lawyers want Gov. Bill Lee to commute her death sentence.

“The governor’s call for an independent review does not go far enough,” her attorney, Randy Spivey, said. “After having endured solitary confinement for more than 20 years and a full attempt to kill her by lethal injection, Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty. The governor must commute Christa’s sentence now.”

One of Pike’s other attorneys, Steve Ferrell, described Pike’s suffering.

“We may never know what all she was suffering through, either because she can’t remember it, she can’t tell it, or it overwhelms her in such a way that, you know, sometimes pain and suffering affect people that way. So, I don’t think we could ever know what it was like to go through that time, but I do know that that really was her biggest fear. It was not a fear of dying; it was a fear of a prolonged, painful, traumatic death. And that’s what happened, minus the death.”

Steve Ferrell, attorney

Pike’s lawyers said the execution team used at least seven needles in an attempt to access a vein. They also described “blistering and burning” around the injection sites.

One of her attorneys said it’s possible the IV line wasn’t properly in the vein, meaning the drug may have gone into her arm instead of her bloodstream.

It remains unknown what actually went wrong. Lee has ordered an independent review and halted Tennessee’s remaining execution this year.

Hochul reassigns Cornell rape case to Letitia James

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has removed the local district attorney from the Cornell University gang-rape investigation and put the state attorney general in charge.

Hochul has appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor, saying she has “lost faith” in Tompkins County DA Matthew van Houten’s ability to fairly oversee the case.

The allegations date back to 2024, when a Cornell student said multiple men at a fraternity house drugged and raped her.

Cornell conducted its own investigation, which led to expulsions, suspensions and other sanctions, but Van Houten’s office closed its criminal investigation without filing charges.

He reopened it this week after the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit and new details about the original investigation emerged.

Van Houten has since said he never saw the full transcript of Doe’s 2024 interview with campus police, including her statement that she was “100% confident” she had been raped.

Now, James will decide whether there’s enough evidence to pursue criminal charges and present the case to a grand jury.

In a statement, Hochul said the woman at the center of the case deserves to know “every fact will be examined and justice pursued.”

Hochul and James are set to hold a news conference at 9:30 ET Friday morning with an update on the investigation.

Renee Good’s family files lawsuits against ICE officer, Trump officials

Renee Good’s family is taking the federal government to court nine months after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed her in Minneapolis.

Becca Good, Renee Good’s partner, and her brother filed two civil lawsuits Thursday, one against the U.S. government and the other against the ICE officer who shot Renee Good and several current and former Trump administration officials.

On Jan. 7, the ICE officer shot Renee Good as she was driving away from federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation. Federal officials said at the time the officer, Jonathan Ross, acted in self-defense. The family’s lawsuits accuse him of using unjustified and excessive force.

Thursday was also the first time Becca Good has spoken publicly since ICE killed her partner.

“Every morning she is my first thought. I think about how the kids are growing up without their mama. And I’ll grow old without the love of my life. I think about how we should have had 40 or 60 more years together. But I also think a lot about what she would have wanted after all of this.

We are here today not out of anger and not out of hate. We are here because Renee’s love and legacy demand a better world for her children, for this community and for this country. What happened to our family should not happen to any family, regardless of who you are, who you voted for, or what you believe.”

Becca Good, Renee Good’s partner

The family’s attorneys said the cases go beyond what happened on the street that day.

The second lawsuit names officials including White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House border czar Tom Homan.

It alleges a conspiracy to violate civil rights as part of the administration’s immigration crackdown.

“Today’s filings are not about immigration policy. We are focused on the extraordinary overreach of the federal government and federal agents who use aggressive tactics that ignored well-established protocols and training for law enforcement officers, and used excessive and unnecessary force, causing countless U.S. citizens and legal residents to become collateral damage.”

Antonio Romanucci, attorney

The lawsuits come just days after Renee Good’s mother and brother testified before Congress about fatal shootings involving federal immigration officers.

Federal agents killed another U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis just weeks after Renee Good.

The Justice Department has not responded.

Judge denies Clancy’s bid to dismiss murder charge after mistrial

The judge in the Lindsay Clancy murder case has rejected her attorney’s bid to end the case without another trial. On Thursday, he denied a motion arguing there wasn’t enough evidence to prove she was responsible for killing her three children in their Massachusetts home in 2023.

Had the judge granted the motion, the case would have ended without a retrial. Instead, the murder charges remain in place.

Clancy’s first trial ended in a mistrial last month after seven days of deliberations. Eleven jurors were ready to find hernot criminally responsible because of mental disease, while one maintained she was guilty.

Clancy has admitted to killing the children. Her defense argues, however, that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and was not criminally responsible.

After the mistrial, her attorney, Kevin Reddington, asked the judge to find Clancy not guilty, arguing prosecutors hadn’t presented enough evidence to prove their case.

At a hearing Tuesday, Reddington went further, arguing no evidence exists that Clancy had ever admitted to the killings — or that she had killed the children at all.

On Thursday, the judge rejected that argument, ruling prosecutors had presented enough evidence for a jury to consider whether Clancy knew what she was doing was wrong.

Prosecutors called three expert witnesses during the six-week trial who said Clancy understood her actions were wrong. Meanwhile, the defense had its own experts who disagreed. The judge said that when experts conflict on that question, the jury decides.

Thursday’s ruling keeps the case alive after last month’s mistrial.

Clancy will remain charged with murder and will remain at a psychiatric hospital for now.

SpaceX launches classified US spy mission, capping three launches in 13 hours

SpaceX had a very busy Thursday, pulling off something it had done only once before. It successfully launched three rockets in less than 13 hours.

The NROL-97 mission, the third and final rocket, lifted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center just before midnight Thursday.

Watch Falcon Heavy launch NROL-97 https://t.co/scL8chccHc

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 2, 2026

Here’s what makes it interesting: we don’t know what was on board. The Falcon Heavy carried a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. agency that operates the country’s spy satellites.

Earlier Thursday, SpaceX first sent Crew-13 to the International Space Station. The four-person crew arrived nearly eight hours after liftoff.

Docking confirmed! pic.twitter.com/Y1xwyaevSL

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 1, 2026

Then came Transporter-18, which SpaceX calls a “smallsat rideshare” mission carrying 180 payloads into orbit.

Watch Falcon 9 launch the Transporter-18 mission to orbit https://t.co/W4VS07HPRZ

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 1, 2026

All told, SpaceX has now launched more than 100 missions this year.

And just in case it piques your interest, SpaceX now offers so-called “rideshare missions” for as low as — wait for it — $350,000. 

More from Straight Arrow:

Lawyer says 57 Cornell frat members were in the group chat. Could their silence be a crime?

A New York district attorney said Tuesday the rape case his office declined to prosecute two years ago against seven Cornell students “will be prosecuted” now that the victim has filed a civil lawsuit this month with new details. 

The civil suit names several defendants, including the seven men who had sexual contact with the victim, their fraternity, the victim’s sorority and the school.

The day Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced he was reopening the case, an attorney for the victim said even more people were aware of the assault at the time and failed to report it, let alone stop it. The civil suit includes a screenshot showing messages posted on a private Snapchat thread for members of the Chi Phi fraternity inviting people to participate in the alleged assault. News of dozens of other fraternity members knowing about the incident has many questioning why their complicity is not being punished. 

“The fact that they sent an invitation out to 57 men to rape a woman, and nobody did anything to stop it — this is horrible to me,” Thomas P. Giuffra, the attorney representing the victim, told a television reporter. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Now, public outrage is turning towards the members of that chat group where the assault was discussed openly but did not act. 

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