The mother of 7-year-old Chicago girl Edimari Hernandez Chacon, who was fatally stabbed on a sidewalk in Chicago, October 3, 2026, breaks down amid family and friends during a vigil, Oct. 4, 2026, at the scene of the attack. (WLS)
The mother of a 7-year-old Chicago girl is demanding “justice” after her child was fatally stabbed over the weekend in what appears to have been an unprovoked street attack.
The mother of the young victim broke down in tears and collapsed to her knees during a community vigil on Sunday on a sidewalk in the South Side Chicago neighborhood where her daughter was attacked.
“My daughter’s death should not be left like this,” the mother, Estefany Hernandez, told ABC Chicago station WLS at Sunday’s vigil. “There must be justice for my little girl. She wasn’t bothering anyone.”
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victim as 7-year-old Edi Mari Hernandez Chacon. Members of her family told WLS she was also known as Eddimar Paola Hernandez.
Bystanders who witnessed the deadly incident on Saturday morning detained the suspect, identified as 48-year-old Shavon Gayden, and held her at the scene until officers arrived, according to the Chicago Police Department.
Gayden was charged with first-degree murder and is scheduled to make her first court appearance on Monday, WLS reports.
WLS obtained court records showing Gayden’s criminal record includes prior convictions for assault, including a 2023 attack on a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus driver for which she was sentenced to two years probation. According to the court records reviewed by WLS, she violated her probation in 2024 by assaulting two shelter workers and was sentence to court supervision.
Police have not commented on a possible motive for Saturday’s stabbing, which remains under investigation.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a social media statement that he was “heartbroken” by the young girl’s death.
“No family should ever have to experience the unimaginable pain of losing a child, and no child should ever have to fear for her life simply walking through her neighborhood,” Johnson said. “We are praying for them and for everyone impacted by this horrifying tragedy.”
The incident occurred just before noon local time on Saturday in the Chatham neighborhood on the city’s South Side, according to a statement from the Chicago Police Department.
Chicago Alderman Michelle Harris said at Sunday’s community vigil that the suspect had allegedly gotten into an altercation with staff at a wireless store in the Chatham neighborhood just before the fatal stabbing, WLS reported.
The victim was walking southbound on the sidewalk when the suspect approached her, police said, “displayed a sharp object and stabbed the victim multiple times in the back.”
The girl was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.
“Bystanders who saw the stabbing occur detained the offender,” according to the police statement.
Security video from the area appeared to show the young girl walking hand-in-hand with a woman that her family identified as her sister before the suspect stabbed the girl, WLS reported.
Additional video appeared to show bystanders rushing toward the scene to detain the suspect, who was outside the camera’s view.
USA, New York, Finger Lakes Region, Ithaca, Cornell University, elevated view of McFaddin Hall, summer (Walter Bibikow/Getty Images)
Some of the fraternity brothers later accused of sexual assault at Cornell University attempted to contain the allegations in the weeks following the incident, apparently worried about what would happen to their own reputations and futures on campus, according to text messages, phone calls, and other records reviewed by ABC News.
Students who later spoke to campus authorities described the efforts by some in Chi Phi as “damage control” to ensure the woman allegedly assaulted — now known as Jane Doe — was “not upset about the situation,” according to school records reviewed by ABC News.
The fraternity brothers’ efforts came as Jane Doe’s perception of what occurred that evening in October 2024 appeared to change from believing the sexual encounters were largely consensual to describing them in a phone call as a “gang rape.”
“The only way for me to heal is to know what happened,” the woman, then a Cornell junior, told one of her alleged attackers, Matthew Ingalls, over the phone one day before she went to the Cornell University Police Department on Nov. 8, according to a recording of the call obtained by ABC News. “That’s why I’m trying to just piece it together, you know, like I’m just like confused.”
Ingalls, according to police records of the incident, invited Jane Doe to the fraternity house. He has not responded to requests for comment but previously denied wrongdoing as have the other brothers named in a civil suit brought by Doe. Ingalls has not been charged with a crime.
During Cornell’s investigation, he said he was too intoxicated to consent and suggested that Jane Doe actually assaulted him, according to school records reviewed by ABC News.
The Oct. 19, 2024 incident at the Chi Phi house has led to a national outcry and brought renewed urgency to the American debate over sexual violence and what constitutes consent between adults when alcohol, drugs and pressure intersect.
ABC News has reviewed records from Cornell’s internal investigation — which began in November 2024 and lasted through May 2025 — as well as communications between the students at the center of the allegations that shed light on how Doe’s account of the incident evolved, as the men involved appeared to portray the story to seem more benign.
Jane Doe has described an evening that started casually when she went to visit her friend and his fraternity house. It soon would turn into a nightmare, she later told police, as a sexual encounter between Jane Doe and two men grew to include others all while she was plied with alcohol and drugs.
“They tried to contact [Jane] almost every day after it happened to, I guess, keep them on her good side and keep her happy and not upset about the situation,” Jane Doe’s friend later told campus authorities the following May, according to records reviewed by ABC News.
Those efforts apparently were unsuccessful. Jane Doe reported the incident to Cornell Police as a rape and the allegations triggered a response from the leadership of Cornell’s Chi Phi chapter, according to text messages obtained by ABC News.
“F—-,” one brother wrote in a group chat on Nov. 8, 2024. “Should I call [Jane]?”
“Wait a bit for me and [Executive Board] to figure out what we’re doing cuz there are a couple of other things going on,” the fraternity’s president wrote. “When was the last time you spoke to [Jane]?”
The same day that Jane Doe went to police, Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity was suspended, and the allegations triggered a monthslong investigation by Cornell University, which resulted in two men being expelled while others were suspended.
Cornell Police began investigating the incident in November 2024, memorializing her first report: “A female undergraduate student reported that she was recently raped by 8-10 men at the Chi Phi fraternity house.”
Prosecutors did not seek additional records of the incident beyond Jane Doe’s six-page statement to campus police and did not review the voluminous record of the internal probe.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten said in a statement last week that Doe’s original statement suggested the sex and drug use was consensual.
Last week, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul removed the local DA from the case and named state Attorney General Letitia James to take over the criminal investigation of the incident. Separately, Cornell has announced an outside law firm would be tapped this week to review the university’s handling of the allegations and subsequent investigation.
‘What y’all did would be classified as gang rape’
In the days immediately following the incident, Jane Doe stayed in touch with some of the men she later accused of assaulting her – at first sharing concerns about her reputation and physical health.
“I will also say this is f—–g RUINING my life temporarily. My reputation is destroyed and I’m utterly ashamed. I’m f—–g pissed cause this many people shouldn’t know and I feel like I know who some of the rats in the room were,” she wrote to Ingalls, who had invited her to the fraternity that night.
Within two days of reporting the incident to police, Jane Doe contacted Ingalls and two other men allegedly involved in the incident to get their assessment of what happened that evening. She said she had been to the emergency room and going through therapy in order to deal with the physical and psychological fallout. She recorded the phone calls and later provided them to Cornell University.
“If I just know what happened, then I can feel a little bit better and move on and maybe be able to stay at this school,” Doe told Ingalls, according to a recording of the call.
She mentioned that she had sustained physical harm from the episode, was struggling to finish the semester and could not understand how the events of the evening transpired.
Ingalls was insistent: “You did tell me you were sober, by the way,” he said, according to the recording. “You did, you said you hadn’t been anywhere.”
She pushed back, saying “That is not true. I never would have said that.”
Jane Doe also asked about how so many people ended up in the bedroom where the sexual encounters took place over the course of hours.
“Do you remember how any of these guys walked in?” she asked.
“The door was just unlocked…the party was sort of like crowded…there was nowhere else to go,” he responded.
Nowhere in that conversation did Ingalls mention the messages he sent into his fraternity’s Snapchat group in which he openly invited others to the room.
“Like you can walk in and whip it out,” the Ingalls wrote in the group, which had nearly 60 members. “Boys come whip it out.”
Those messages were provided to university investigators and have been obtained by ABC News.
At one point in the call, Jane Doe described the incident bluntly: “What y’all did would be classified as gang rape.”
“It’s possible that both of us like remember this and it’s not true,” Ingalls said at another point during the call.
“I don’t think that that’s true. No, no, because I remember looking up and being like that is too many people,” she responded.
‘F—k, should I call [Jane]?’
When Chi Phi was notified about the chapter’s temporary suspension the same day Jane Doe went to police, some of the brothers tried to figure out the source of the allegation, according to text messages reviewed by ABC News.
“What’s the plan of action? Should I call [Jane Doe)? I don’t think she would have reported this,” Ingalls wrote in a small group chat.
Chi Phi’s then-president urged Ingalls to wait, pointing to how Cornell University initially listed the incorrect date for the alleged incident.
Within the chat, the brothers tried to reconcile what date the incident took place by comparing the themed parties that took place that month.
“Wait that was the night with [Jane Doe],” one brother wrote. “What party did we have on the 19th?”
“The 25th was the risky business party,” one brother wrote, while the incident took place the prior week during their Hawaii-themed party.
When police later questioned witnesses to the incident, one brother told police the incident had been discussed casually during a fraternity meeting, rather than a coordinated response.
“These guys were just being idiots and like we’re very open about doing this kind of gross thing to most people and so that was it,” one brother said. “We didn’t like have it aside – like this happened once. No it was like just a quick thing.”
‘If the evidence is convincing enough to let us go….’
Months later, when Jane Doe made a statement before one of Cornell’s internal investigative hearings, she explicitly called out what she described as “the coverups these boys attempted.”
Investigators looked into at least one instance when Ingalls appeared to ask one witness to “submit new evidence” that could exonerate him.
“You could submit new evidence that could get me and [Name Omitted] dismissed immediately. Even if [Jane Doe] found out it doesn’t matter, if the evidence is convincing enough to let us go then it’s proof she lied.”
“I don’t have evidence,” the woman – a friend of Jane Doe – said over Snapchat.
The friend shared the message with Jane Doe, who reported it to the university. The witness later told campus investigators that Ingalls sent her other messages to convince her to believe his account.
“From the beginning, after it happened and [Jane Doe] started telling me that it was not consensual from the beginning,” she said. “He wants to convince me that she is lying and he tried to convince me in other messages like this one that she was lying and he said that, ‘You know that she’s lying And you know that we would never do this.’”
Caleb Flynn listens to the reading of his guilty verdict inside the Miami County Court of Common Pleas, Sept. 29, 2026, in Troy, Ohio. (Pool via ABC News)
An Ohio man who was found guilty of murdering his wife and staging the crime scene to make it seem as if an intruder had broken into their home and fatally shot the mother of two is set to be sentenced on Monday.
Caleb Flynn, 40, a former pastor who once appeared as a contestant on “American Idol” in 2013, was found guilty of aggravated murder and multiple counts of murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of his wife, 37-year-old Ashley Flynn.
The jury deliberated for nearly 2 1/2 hours before reaching a verdict on Sept. 29, finding him guilty of all charges. His sentencing hearing is set to begin at 3 p.m. ET Monday. He faces up to life in prison without parole.
Caleb Flynn called 911 early on Feb. 16 to report that his wife had been shot by an intruder at their home in Tipp City, north of Dayton. He was arrested three days later.
Prosecutors alleged that Caleb Flynn “executed” his wife by shooting her twice in the back of the head in bed so that he could be with his mistress and manipulated the crime scene to make it seem as if an intruder had broken in through the garage.
During closing arguments, Miami County Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Joseph pointed to evidence including the physical scene and a side garage door he said was made to look as if an intruder had damaged it, Caleb Flynn’s 911 call, text messages between the defendant and his mistress discussing the end of his marriage and digital records from the night of the shooting, which he argued “leads straight to the defendant.”
“The evidence showed that being the victim would allow the defendant to keep his lucrative job working for Ashley’s family business, he would benefit from Ashley’s life insurance, and he could keep his position as a working worship leader with zero impact to his reputation within the church,” Joseph said during closing arguments on Sept. 29 in the Miami County courtroom. “The evidence does not tell the story of an intruder.”
Defense attorney Patrick Mulligan argued during his closing that the state’s evidence is circumstantial, and that the only thing prosecutors proved was that Caleb Flynn was having an affair.
“Connecting a couple of meaningless dots doesn’t solve the case,” Mulligan told jurors.
Caleb Flynn did not testify during the trial and the defense called no witnesses.
He denied killing his spouse in an interview with police days after the deadly shooting, according to video shown during the more than weeklong trial.
His former mistress testified for the state during the trial, reading from some of the more than 100,000 messages they exchanged over her two days of testimony.
“If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat,” Caleb Flynn said in one message from May 2025, Botner testified.
Following the guilty verdict, Mulligan told reporters that he expected there to be a notice of appeal filed.
When asked what appellate issues they have, he said, “There’s a lack of evidence on prior calculation and design.”
Prosecuting Attorney Paul Watkins, whose office prosecuted the case, thanked the jury “for their dedication to justice in this case.”
In a statement read by Watkins, Ashley Flynn’s family said they “refuse to let the evil that ended Ashley’s life have the final word in her story.”
“Ashley loved Jesus with her whole heart. Her faith wasn’t simply something she simply spoke about. It was how she lived,” the statement said. “She loved people well, found joy beyond her circumstances, prayed boldly for her family, and wanted her life to point people to Jesus.”
“Most of all, she loved being a mom,” the statement continued. “She prayed over her girls, taught them to love God, and showed them what it looked like to live with faith, kindness, joy, and grace.”
Chicago police officer stands amid the taped-off crime scene, where a 7-year-old girl was fatally stabbed in broad daylight, October 3, 2026. (WLS)
A 7-year-old girl was fatally stabbed on a sidewalk in a shopping district of Chicago over the weekend by a woman who was detained at the scene of the crime by bystanders, according to police.
The incident occurred just before noon local time on Saturday in the Chatham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, according to a statement from the Chicago Police Department.
The victim was walking southbound on the sidewalk when the unidentified suspect approached her, police said.
“The offender displayed a sharp object and stabbed the victim multiple times in the back,” according to the police statement.
The girl was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office has identified the young victim as Edimari Hernandez Chacon, according to ABC Chicago station WLS.
“Bystanders who saw the stabbing occur detained the offender,” according to the police statement.
The adult female suspect was injured as she was being detained, police said, who added that she was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries and then taken into custody.
Detectives are investigating the attack, police said.
Security video from the area appeared to show the young victim walking hand-in-hand with a woman before the suspect stabbed her, WLS reported.
Additional video appeared to show bystanders rushing toward the scene to detain the suspect, who was outside the camera’s view.
Police have not said if the suspect knew the girl or whether the stabbing was a random attack.
“I am deeply saddened by the senseless stabbing of a 7-year-old child in our neighborhood. My heart goes out to her family, friends, and everyone who is affected by this horrific incident. No child should ever have to experience violence or fear while simply walking down the sidewalk,” Chicago Alderman Michelle Harris, who represents the Chatham neighborhood, said in a statement posted online.
Harris also praised the actions of the bystanders who detained the suspect: “Their quick actions may have prevented further harm.”
People flock to Baker Beach near the Golden Gate Bridge as a heat advisory is issued in San Francisco, California, October 3, 2026. (Anadolu via Getty Images)
More than 35 million people are under heat alerts on Sunday afternoon as a dangerous multi-day October heat wave continues across nearly all of California.
Temperatures are expected to soar up to 20 degrees above normal for this time of year, into the 90s and 100s, from Northern California, including the San Francisco Bay Area, to the Mexico border.
In some areas of California, especially urban areas, warm nights will provide little to no relief.
Los Angeles and San Diego remain under an extreme heat warning, with heat advisories posted on Sunday for San Francisco and Sacramento.
Temperatures Sunday afternoon once again soared into the 90s across much of California, with some areas surpassing 100 degrees.
High temperatures on Sunday afternoon will be near 104 in downtown Los Angeles, 103 in Bakersfield, and will climb well into the 90s in San Diego and Sacramento.
The extreme heat warnings in Southern California will remain in effect until 8 p.m. local time on Thursday.
The heat will expand over much of the West over the next 24 hours, with temperatures running well above average for early October across a large part of the region.
Highs on Monday will reach the upper 80s as far north as southern Idaho and Montana, challenging daily record highs in Boise and Billings.
It will also be heating up in Denver on Monday, with afternoon temperatures in the upper 80s, potentially challenging a daily record high as well.
On Saturday, at least eight Southern California cities broke daily high-temperature marks, including Anaheim and San Diego, which both reached 105 degrees, and Santa Ana, which hit 107 degrees.
Meanwhile, Vista, Calif., north of San Diego, reached a high temperature of 108, breaking a daily temperature record and tying an all-time record high set on June 30, 1985.
Rounds of heavy rain across parts of the Gulf Coast and Southeast
Flood watches remain in effect from southeastern Louisiana to southern Georgia, including New Orleans; Mobile, Alabama; Tallahassee, Florida; and Brunswick, Georgia.
There is a level 2 of 4 risk on Sunday afternoon for excessive rainfall and flash flooding from southeastern Louisiana to the Florida panhandle and up into South Carolina.
Torrential rain could also trigger potentially significant flash flooding across portions of South Texas on Sunday afternoon and into the evening.
The biggest rainfall totals will occur along portions of the northern Gulf Coast, the Florida Panhandle, and from Mobile, Ala., and Biloxi, Miss., to Pensacola and Panama City, Fla., and Brownsville, Texas. In these areas, 2 to 6 inches of rain is forecast, with localized totals of 8-10 inches possible.
Commissioner Frank Strada (Tennessee Department of Correction)
Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada said he will resign days after Christa Pike was hospitalized following a botched execution attempt, according to Gov. Bill Lee.
The Tennessee governor’s statement on Saturday did not directly reference the situation with Pike, who is currently “critically ill,” unconscious and on a ventilator in a hospital following the Sept. 30 failed execution. In the announcement, Strada said that stepping aside was “in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward.”
“I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred,” he said in a statement.
Lee said he accepted Strada’s resignation and the commissioner would leave his post at the end of the month.
“Commissioner Strada has served with integrity, and I appreciate his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment,” the governor said in a statement.
An interim commissioner will be announced at a later date, the statement noted.
Pike’s attorneys, Randy Spivey, Kelly Gleason, Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen, responded to the Strada stepping down in their own statement.
“The resignation of Commissioner Strada is justified, but it does nothing to help Christa now. What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person,” they wrote. “We hope the Governor’s call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee’s entire death penalty system.”
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard attends “An Evening with Lifetime: Conversations On Controversies” FYC event at The Grove on May 01, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)
Gypsy Rose Blanchard‘s partner Kenan Urker was found dead on his 34th birthday in what officials describe as an apparent drug-related incident, authorities said.
Officers discovered Urker dead when they responded to a call from a home in Raceland, Louisiana, on Thursday evening, according to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Urker, who was lying on a bed, was cold and his face and arms were blue, according to the sheriff’s office. A paper towel on his arm appeared to have “blotches of blood” on it, the sheriff’s office said.
On the nightstand next to the bed was a holstered handgun, a syringe and two shot glasses, according to the sheriff’s office.
In the bathroom, deputies discovered syringes, a spoon and a “brown powdery substance,” the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office said there’s “no evidence of foul play.”
Blanchard wrote on Instagram on Friday, “You will always be my greatest love story. You will be remembered and loved forever.”
She added in an Instagram story that he was an “amazing father” and “will forever be my soulmate.”
In 2015, Blanchard and her then-boyfriend Nicholas Godejohn were arrested for the fatal stabbing of Blanchard’s mother, Clauddinnea “Dee Dee” Blanchard.
“Dee Dee” Blanchard had allegedly abused her daughter for years by convincing Gypsy Rose and the public that she was extremely sick, when she wasn’t. “Dee Dee” Blanchard allegedly portrayed her daughter as a frail, disabled child who suffered from multiple illnesses including leukemia and muscular dystrophy, subjecting her to a life in a wheelchair, a feeding tube and unnecessary surgeries.
After her release from prison, Gypsy Rose Blanchard told ABC News she wanted to share her story “to bring awareness to mental health issues, to Munchausen by proxy, to abuse victims.”
She said she hoped her story would serve as a “cautionary tale” for others.
“So that the next person that might be in a situation like mine, they don’t take the route that I did,” she said.
Jyrell Thomas was taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation Thursday morning. He was described by police as emotionally disturbed.
He was later arrested on charges of murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Police said Thomas was pacing back and forth inside the train car and appeared agitated before approaching Mesias Lojano, 59, just after 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Lojano tried to walk away before Thomas swung at him with a kitchen knife, according to police.
Bismarck Villareyna witnessed the attack and recorded video aboard the train.
“I heard, oh somebody is being attacked, somebody being attacked. So I pulled out my phone, started walking, as you see in the video,” Villareyna said.
The violence eventually spilled onto a J train platform, where bystanders chased Thomas.
“There was an old man behind me – hold him! Hold him! Hold him! And that’s when he started running. And then I started running after him,” Villareyna said.
Villareyna said he considered trying to physically intervene but was concerned that he could also be stabbed.
“I wanted to kick him, but I say, you know, if I kick him and I miss or he stabbed me then. So I was getting my position. I tried to record to get, you know, evidence.”
Villareyna continued following Thomas and directed officers to him. Thomas climbed onto a rooftop, where he had to be lifted and carried away.
“Then he stopped there and he sat down and he was saying, ‘oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it.’ But in some of my videos, I was, I was upset,” Villareyna said.
Thomas has one prior arrest, stemming from a robbery early last month in which he stole $23 of merchandise from a Bronx Target. He was charged with petit larceny, obstruction of governmental administration and criminal possession of stolen property.
This is the sixth homicide in the subway system this year. There were four murders in the system all of last year, and 10 in 2024.
There has been a 7% increase in assaults in the subway this year, with 441 vs 410 at this time last year.
A plane carrying passengers from an earlier Flydubai flight that was diverted to Saudi Arabia on September 30, 2026. (Photo by Erik Marmor/Getty Images)
The co-pilot of the FlyDubai plane who allegedly attacked the plane’s captain and attempted to crash a flight bound for Israel on Wednesday is an Omani national who was previously suspended from flying by Oman Air after being identified as a security risk, according to senior intelligence and law enforcement officials.
Multiple sources familiar with the investigation identified the suspected attacker as 29-year-old Hamam Al Hammami.
The officials told ABC News that Al Hammami, while working as a co-pilot trainee for Oman Air in 2024, was found to be in possession of extremist materials. The suspect was allowed to continue working for the airline in an administrative role, the sources said.
United Arab Emirates Attorney General Hamad Saif Al Shamsi on Saturday said the aircraft’s co-pilot had attempted to carry out a terrorist act and that he began executing his plan during the flight by assaulting the pilot inside the cockpit using a crash axe and attempted to seize control of the aircraft’s controls, according to WAM state news agency.
This is the first confirmation by UAE authorities that the co-pilot had attacked the captain and identified the weapon used as a crash axe. Previous UAE statements had described the incident as a security incident and said an investigation was underway to determine whether it involved terrorist activity or prior planning.
The attorney general stressed that investigations are still ongoing to establish all the circumstances and motives surrounding the incident, as well as any related links. He added that technical examinations and the analysis of physical and digital evidence are also being completed, with the final findings to be announced once the necessary procedures have been concluded.
Officials investigating the incident are still trying to determine how the suspected attacker was subsequently permitted to fly for FlyDubai and how he ended up as the first officer in the cockpit of a plane headed for Israel, the sources said.
Al Hammami — who was transferred Thursday from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates — is said to be “cooperating” with authorities investigating the incident and has indicated that his intent was to crash the aircraft in Israel, according to sources briefed on the investigation.
“We recognise that there are many questions at this stage; however, the circumstances surrounding the incident are still under investigation,” FlyDubai said in a statement obtained by ABC News on Saturday. “We are therefore not in a position to comment further beyond our published statements. We remain fully committed to supporting the ongoing investigation and are in close coordination with the relevant government authorities and regulators.”
Representatives for Oman Air and the Omani Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
FlyDubai issued a statement earlier Friday, attributed to its chief executive officer, saying that, at the request of the authorities, FlyDubai had “temporarily suspended operations to Tel Aviv until further notice,” and saying “a full official investigation, led by the relevant authorities and fully supported by flydubai, is underway.”
A disaster was averted when the flight’s captain, Smit Machchhar, fought back and a number of passengers subdued and restrained the attacker, who had sent the plane into a rapid dive.
One of the passengers, Israeli plumber Yaniv Hayoun, said he pulled back on the controls to steady the plane until a third pilot, who was traveling in the passenger cabin, took over. The flight eventually landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
One of the passengers who ran to the front of the plane, Dr. Shota Musaev, told ABC News in an interview this week that the attacker — who was bloodied and restrained on the floor outside the cockpit — told him he was from Oman. Musaev said that at one point the suspect asked Musaev to kill him.
“He said, ‘Kill me please, kill me please,'” Musaev said.
Israeli officials are expected to be on the ground and involved in the questioning of Al Hammami, sources said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said that the suspected attacker, who he didn’t name, had undergone “Islamist radicalization.”
“He came to crash the plane with all passengers on board,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his office. “We are investigating whether he was sent, and whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price.”
Netanyahu also again heaped praise on Hayoun and the other heroic passengers for preventing a “tragedy like 9/11.”
A threadbare internet biography page believed to belong to the suspect indicated that he had studied aviation management at a British university and engineering at an Australian university.
A source at the Buckinghamshire New University confirmed that Al Hammami completed a three-year distance-learning course and graduated with a degree in aviation management in 2023. The source stressed that Al Hammami did not take any pilot training at the school.
Royal Air Maroc — Morocco’s national carrier — confirmed to ABC News that Al Hammami completed a three-month theoretical training period with the airline in 2025 as part of its pre-employment process. At the end of the training, he was not selected for employment, the airline confirmed, but it wouldn’t say why.
A representative for the school in Australia declined to comment and referred an inquiry from ABC News to the Australian federal police.
– ABC News’ Dragana Jovanovic contributed to this report.
A Gulfstream G100 Astra SPX aircraft operated by Latitude Air Ambulance, lands at Brussels-Zaventem Airport, Belgium, March 21, 2026. (Thierry Monasse/Getty Images, FILES)
The U.S. Coast Guard was searching the waters off Massachusetts for a missing medical transfer plane with six people on board that went missing on Saturday morning, officials said.
The Federal Aviation Administration informed the Coast Guard they lost contact with the Gulfstream G-100 around 2 a.m., as the plane flew from Bermuda to Boston, according to the Coast Guard.
The Bermuda Skyport Corporation, which operates LF Wade International Airport, said in a statement that the Canadian-registered plane took off from the airport with four crew members and two passengers at around 12:41 a.m. on Saturday.
There were no Americans aboard the plane, a source with knowledge of the investigation told ABC News.
The Coast Guard is using air and sea vehicles to search around Nantucket, the agency said. As of Saturday 11:00 a.m., there had been no updates.
Officials believe the plane rapidly descended 7,500 feet before hitting the water, a source with knowledge of the investigation told ABC News.
