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One World with Zain Asher
Passenger Describes Subduing Suspect on Flydubai Flight; Protesters Demand Lawmakers Act Over Spain's Housing Crisis; SpaceX Rocket Lifting Off on Crew-13 Mission to the ISS; New Documents Reveal Timeline of Alleged Cornell Sexual Assault. Aired 11-11:30a ET
Aired October 01, 2026 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:00]
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BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST, ONE WORLD: Hello, everyone. Live from New York, I'm Bianna Golodryga. Zain is off today. You are watching "One World". As
Israel celebrates the safe return of all the passengers on a harrowing Flydubai flight. The prime minister is weighing in on the suspect behind an
alleged hijack attempt inside the cockpit.
Benjamin Netanyahu says the alleged attacker, the co-pilot, underwent quote, Islamist radical indoctrination. He also said it's clear that the
suspect, who he says is an Omani national, was suicidal, and that he might have used an ax to attack the pilot. Here's some of what Prime Minister
Netanyahu told CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The Israeli passenger burst in, saw the attacking co-pilot hover over the instruments. He wasn't sitting in
the two in one of the two pilot seats, but he was trying to jam the instruments. The Israeli passenger Yaniv took him back, threw him back,
took the controls, the stick, and pulled it back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: So frightening. This is a glimpse at the chaos inside the cabin. Several passengers rushed the cockpit and then subdued the attacker. And
the airline says reserve crew members regained control of the plane. A warning, some may find the next video graphic.
Images shared on social media show the seriously wounded pilot lying on the floor. A dentist on board administered medical aid. He's now reported to be
in stable condition. Captain Smit Machchhar is hailed around the world as a hero, along with the passengers on that flight, he was able to fly back.
He was able to fight back against the attacker and managed to unlock the cockpit door. The Israeli Prime Minister says that he prevented a 9/11 type
disaster. CNN's Paula Hancocks joins us now from Dubai. Paula, reports are that this pilot has been in hospital overnight in Saudi Arabia.
His condition appears to be unstabilized, hailed as a hero around the world, not only from the Israeli Prime Minister but from Narendra Modi as
well. Just talk about the sequence of events that we are learning more about what led to those passengers subduing the co-pilot and then the
reserve crew ultimately landing the plane.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Bianna, I just one update on the pilot Smit Machchhar. We did hear from an Indian lawmaker saying that he
had surgery yesterday in Saudi Arabia, and today he is quote, out of danger, saying he has become a hero to the world.
Now, what we saw was really remarkable on board. The fact that this pilot, it is believed he was the one that was able to open the cockpit door, which
was a critical part of preventing this attack becoming absolutely catastrophic for those on board. A cockpit door which cannot be opened from
the outside, only from the inside.
And once it was opened, it then gave a chance for some of those passengers to get involved and to overpower the attacker. Let's listen to what one of
those passengers said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. SHOTA MUSAEV, FLYDUBAI PASSENGER: He didn't scream at all. He just sat down quietly and went along with it. We used the cord from the headphones,
and later they brought us plastic zip ties, which we used as well. We were fully engaged in subduing and restraining him.
At the same time, I was helping the pilot. Everyone there behaved heroically. The whole plane, including the children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANCOCKS: Now we know that there has been an investigation started here in the UAE, already the attorney general says an investigation has started as
to whether or not this is linked to terrorist activity, and also whether or not this was -- whether it involved prior planning or direction.
Something key that authorities would want to find out is whether or not this is a lone wolf attack. Whether there is more organization behind this
attack that they need to be concerned about. Now, the attacker himself, we understood, was in Saudi Arabia. He was being questioned by authorities
there.
[11:05:00]
That was according to the Israeli Prime Minister, who really has been the bearer of much of this information over the past two days. We also know
that he will at some point be brought back here to the UAE for questioning. The Israeli Prime Minister says that that he will be part, or the Israelis
will be part of that investigation.
He's spoken to the Emirati leader, he says, and that has already been agreed. Saudi Arabia also playing into this. A number of things they need
to find out. The motive being one of the key factors here, Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: Motive as the investigation continues, but just unbelievable. 24 hours later, these passengers home. I can only imagine the trauma they've
experienced, but also how fortunate they feel to have survived what could have been a devastating tragedy. Paula Hancocks, thank you so much.
Well, one day after a massive wave of Russian attacks targeting energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine. Moscow is pushing forward with its
relentless aerial bombardment. A Russian drone struck a school in Kyiv. The school's director says more than 100 children were in a shelter when the
drone hit, and none were injured.
The new assault marked the fourth straight day of Russian strikes. Russia is placing enormous pressure on Ukraine in an attempt to exhaust its air
defenses. And in France, high school students have been protesting what they say are poor conditions at their schools.
Some of those protests have led to violence. And Reuters reports a head teacher has been dowsed in petrol and fires started at least two schools.
Though it's not clear who's behind those attacks. Students are trying to call attention to teacher shortages and what they say are crumbling
buildings.
In the past few hours, the prime minister's office held a crisis meeting on the violence. Melissa Bell reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fires and blockades at high schools as student protests spread across France,
growing more violent by the day. In this northern French city, the front door to the school is torched, while in Paris, bikes and bins are used as
barricades as students protest over a lack of funding.
LINA BOUILEILAN, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: We're also protesting the lack of staff and the poor state of the school.
BELL (voice-over): It's been a month since la rentree as the start of the school year, is known in France, but the anger goes back much further. It
was fueled and spread on social media, with French students using platforms like TikTok to highlight the poor conditions in their schools.
At this school, they'd been posting about structural issues since 2024, but they say they haven't seen any change. This week, the situation escalated
sharply when police officers on horseback stormed their school. One of several strong-armed efforts from French police trying to bring the
situation under control.
It's the sudden violence of these latest blockades that has taken many by surprise, with more than 600 people taken in by police already, according
to France's Interior Ministry. In this high school in the Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, teachers tell us the violence has mainly come from
the police rather than the students.
NOA, HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER: And they are very violent. They came with shields, with also tear gas. They tear gas the students, even the mayor,
who was in the middle of the crowd.
BELL (voice-over): The blockades have also sparked a political storm, with the French President condemning the violent scenes during a visit to Spain.
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: I think that the violence has, above all, come from those who have pushed teachers and thrown them to the
ground, and those that pushed journalists and got mixed up with police who are just doing their job. High schools are there to be open and to educate,
they're not there to be blockaded or for bins to be burned.
BELL (voice-over): Tensions were further ignited by his prime minister, who accused the far-left political party La France Insoumise of being quote,
irresponsible and fanning the flames outside schools. An accusation rejected by the party's leader.
JEAN-LUC MELENCHON, FRANCE UNBOWED LEADER: Frankly, this isn't the first time there's been a high school student movement in France, but adults need
to protect these young people.
BELL (voice-over): In Seine-Saint-Denis, the teachers we spoke to are standing by their students.
LUCIE, HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER: They are angry because I think that they feel abandoned by the state, by the government, and they are working and sitting
in terrible conditions, and so they want a change in that.
BELL: The problem for authorities is that as these protests have spread and gotten more violent, and the political debate around them has intensified.
The students, like the ones behind me here at this school to the north of Paris in Saint-Denis, insist that they will continue with their protests
until their demands are met. Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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GOLODRYGA: And in Spain, protesters are continuing days of demonstrations over the country's housing crisis ahead of a crucial vote in parliament.
They are occupying part of central Madrid to demand lawmakers approve measures aimed at curbing evictions in the face of soaring rents.
Housing costs and shortages have long been issues in Spain. The recent eviction of an 87-year-old woman, after 70 years in her home, sparked a
fresh wave of anger. She has since been allowed to return home. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has urged lawmakers to back this legislation.
All right, we want to take you now to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is set to lift off. Its Dragon spacecraft is
carrying two NASA astronauts, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, and a Russian cosmonaut who will spend several months on the International Space
Station.
All right, let's tune in. Nine seconds away from takeoff.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ignition and lift off. Go Falcon, go Dragon, and go Crew-13.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lift off of Crew-13 carried by Dragon Brace to the International Space Station.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy one alpha -- pressure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All nine Merlin engines on the first stage at maximum thrust of 1.7 million pounds. We heard a good call that propulsion is
nominal, or as expected. The spacecraft will also begin to pitch downrange, meaning it's turning slightly horizontally from what you saw at lift off to
help build speed.
T plus 40 seconds. T plus 40 seconds into Crew-13's mission on board of Dragon and Falcon 9. And we did hear that call out for stage one throttle
down. That is in preparation for Max Q coming up here in a few seconds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Max Q.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And there's that call out for Max Q. That's the largest structural load that the vehicle sees on a set, and the crew and
Falcon 9 have passed through it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stage one throttle up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After one Bravo --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy one Bravo.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That calls coming from inside the spacecraft. One Bravo, meaning we are in the second and final abort mode for the first
stage, but we are continuing to get good performance. The crew is pulling over two Gs. You can see in the bottom right of your screen.
Impact chill is how we performed the engine chill for the first stage before liftoff. Very similar for the second stage, and then we'll have MECO
or main engine cut off, where the nine engines on the first stage will cut off ahead of the first and second stages, separating from one another.
Then that single Merlin vacuum engine on the second stage will ignite and continue to carry Crew-13 to orbit while the first stage begins its journey
back to Earth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stage one throttle down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The nine Merlin 1D engines are beginning to throttle down and standing by for MECO, our main engine cut off, and we will have a
few events coming back-to-back as we mentioned, MECO stage separation, the MVac starting up on the second stage, as well as the boost back burn for
the first stage, making its way back to Earth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Man, engine cut off.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stage two alpha. Stage separation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy two, alpha -- ignition.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And obvious confirmation, not only verbally but also visually. That's the first stage back floating away from Dragon. That MVac
engine, the second stage engine, has ignited, continuing to carry Crew-13 toward the International Space Station.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Those were some really cool views. We actually saw the boost back burn start up on the first stage, heading back down to Earth,
and now you can see on your screen on the left-hand side that is the first stage vehicle. The grid fin should begin deploying here shortly.
And on your right-hand screen is the MVac engine on the second stage still carrying the Crew-13 astronauts onboard Dragon. The first stage is heading
back to landing zone 40 today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now three minutes 30 seconds into the flight, Crew-13 traveling over 4,000 miles per hour. That's 6,700 kilometers an hour. There
on the right side of your screen, that impact engine continuing to propel them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: It's old to watch this super cool, what appears to be a smooth, successful, seamless lift off of SpaceX, Dragon, Falcon 9 on its way to the
International Space Station.
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We're going to take a quick break. Come back with more news.
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GOLODRYGA: New allegations in the alleged 2024 gang rape at Cornell University. The university has agreed to an independent review of the case.
And "The New York Times" also reports that it has records of the school's sealed internal Title IX investigation, providing documentation of what
Jane Doe told campus police three weeks after the incident.
Doe's attorney corroborated the report and denied leaking it. He also said this quote, Ms. Doe's internal processing went from denial, to shame and
ultimately acceptance that she had been raped by people that she thought were her friends. Her reactions were a textbook reaction to trauma.
CNN's Brynn Gingras takes a closer look at the case, from Doe's statements to campus police to the school's investigation, and why the DA didn't look
into the matter further.
BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: More information is coming out that really just raises more questions about what happened in this
investigation and how did authorities come to the conclusion they came back in 2024 as this investigation has since reopened as of recently.
Now we know about two separate documents, and let me separate the two for you. We know about a transcript that WCBS, our local CNN affiliate, says
that they obtained. It's not clear what this is a transcript of, or what exactly it came from, what kind of report it came from.
Essentially, we know it's an interview of Jane Doe talking to police. And in this transcript, WCBS says Jane Doe says, quote, I can say with 100
percent confidence I was raped. Now there's a separate document that CNN has obtained, and that is a six-page written statement given to police by
Jane Doe back in 2024 that the district attorney says they had in their possession back then and used that to determine whether or not they were
going to press any charges, which we know they didn't.
It is very detailed that six-page written statement it talks about how Jane Doe essentially says she was aware at the time of being extremely
intoxicated when she was inside that fraternity that she consented to some initial sexual activity that night, but as the night went on and the
encounters became more like an assault, she wasn't consenting.
She couldn't consent because that she was so heavily intoxicated, and she believes that she was raped. Now, again, the DA says they're in possession
of that written statement. They say they're not in possession of this transcript that our affiliate says that they have. Now, whether or not they
were in possession of that would change the outcome of this case, it's unclear.
But the DA says basically they're going to get to the bottom of this of why they didn't seem to have all the information that is now being reported at
this point. Cornell says they gave all the information to the DA's office, and but again -- just raises more questions of who knew what, when?
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Why was this not more thoroughly investigated? Why was Jane Doe not interviewed more times than just these reports that are coming out now? And
it really just confirms that there is such distrust in both sides of who was a part of this system that is really you know having people question
not only you know in the media and in the public, but also on campus as well.
So, we're continuing to ask those questions, but in statements from separate sides, again, they are both saying that they each kind of did
their part in making sure everybody had the right information before coming to the conclusion of not pressing charges. And now it seems like that might
not be the case, but it's unclear what was shared and what wasn't. Brynn Gingras, back to you.
GOLODRYGA: The State of Tennessee has paused all executions for the remainder of the year after two doses of a lethal drug failed to kill a
woman on death row. The state tried to kill 50-year-old Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday. The procedure was stopped after two doses of the drug were
administered and failed to kill her.
Pike's attorneys say she was taken to the hospital, but there's still no word on her condition. Pike was scheduled to die for the 1995 murder of a
classmate committed when she was 18 years old. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries.
Across the U.S. early voting is showing signs of a Democratic edge heading into the midterms, with still a month to go before Election Day. More than
700,000 Americans have already cast their ballots across 30 states. President Trump is hitting the campaign trail in the run-up to Election
Day.
This, as he blames Republicans and himself for doing a poor job explaining how good he says the country is actually doing. The president heads to
Texas in the coming hours to back Senate hopeful Ken Paxton. "The New York Times" says it obtained a leaked recording in which Paxton told donors and
lobbyists that his poll numbers actually dropped after Trump's big midterm convention in Dallas last month.
A Paxon Advisor later called the Time story manipulated nonsense. CNN's Betsy Klein joins us from the White House with more. So, it is interesting,
Betsy, that not only is the president traveling to what appear to be safe Republican states other than Texas, and this seems to be an own goal with
not supporting John Cornyn, who seemed to be a clear shoo in.
But the statements he made yesterday about not messaging enough about how the country is actually doing and feeling economically. Give us more
insight into what he said.
BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, Bianna. First of all, all eyes are going to be on the dynamic between President Trump and Ken
Paxton a little bit later today in Texas. After that, what is likely to be a very awkward dynamic there.
But President Trump's mind has been squarely focused on the midterms and specifically this idea that his party is not doing a good enough job of
messaging to voters. Now, of course, that comes as he is facing some pretty dismal polling. About 35 percent of Americans approve of his handling of
the presidency, according to CNN's poll of polls.
And we are starting to see some Republican candidates place strategic distance from the president and his policies on the campaign trail, but
Trump is going to kick off what's expected to be a very aggressive campaign schedule. He is going today to both Texas and Oklahoma, and the goal here
is to boost turnout in these reliably MAGA areas and really bolster his base turnout.
The other goal here, in his words, is to convince Americans that things are going well. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So, there are, by a lot, more Americans working today than at any time in the history of our
country. You can't. That's a stat, but nobody knows it. That's why I'm doing it myself. That's why I'm doing it myself, Rachel.
Can you believe it? I'm going out because nobody's selling it. I'm doing. We're doing an extremely poor job of promotion, and an extremely great job
of running the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KLEIN: Now, privately, Trump officials concede that Republicans could lose the Senate, and they are also increasingly concerned that they could also
lose the -- or excuse me, could lose the House, and increasingly concerned that they could also lose the Senate. Now, in a new interview with Time
Magazine, President Trump downplayed that.
He said that the polls were fake and Republicans are going to do well. However, he did say that if Democrats win the House, quote, they'll
probably go after me, and I'll go after them. But we are now 33 days away from those consequential November midterm elections.
[11:25:00]
We're starting to get a clearer picture of that early voter data, and more than 700,000 Americans have voted across at least 30 states. So far, the
data showing some indications that Democrats have an advantage in that early voting. I want to read to you a little bit.
In several states with key Senate or governor races this fall, according to CNN's reporting, Democrats make up a larger share of voters requesting
ballots so far than they did in 2024. So, we'll be watching all of that closely. Big caveat. It's still very early, Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: Still very early, but a lot of Americans have already voted early as well. Betsy Klein, always good to see you. Thank you. Well, after
a week of fierce competition, we've got a winner of this year's Fat Bear Week. Bear 89 earned more than 100,000 votes to take the title.
The contest works to raise awareness of the brown bear population by pitting the heaviest specimens against each other. But Bear 89 isn't just a
chunky star, he's a furry nepo baby known as Backpack because, as a young cub, he rode around on the back of his mother, who was the 2019 winner of
Fat Fair Week, something in the gene pool there.
All right, congratulations, Bear 89. Stay with CNN. There's more "One World" in about 30 minutes' time. The CNN "Creators" is coming up next.
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(CNN CREATORS)
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