Jubilant scenes as Israeli FlyDubai passengers return home

0:00Hello and welcome to NewsHour Live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kesby. These were some of the jubilant sounds tonight at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. People waving flags and singing as passengers emerged safely after a terrifying ordeal aboard a fly-doubife flight en route to Israel earlier today. The plane made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia after a violent altercation in the cockpit of the plane between the two pilots. One of the pilots was arrested on landing in Saudi Arabia. The other is receiving hospital treatment. We're about to get into all the detail, but in short, it seems passengers overpowered and restrained the attacker, then luckily two other fly-doubife pilots were on board the plane and were able to take over. Well, for the passengers and crew, it's

1:04been a harrowing experience. Videos widely circulating on social media have been helping us piece together what happened, and this is said to be the moment the plane took a rapid plunge. You can just about hear a distressed woman saying in Hebrew, what is going on? Clearly a frightening moment, well, survivors have been telling reporters just how frightening the whole experience has been with people still celebrating in the background. We can hear now from Al Mog, Italy and Chaim Nazarovitz describing what it was like to be on board. It was a regular flight, till we got to the Jordanian border. Suddenly the aircraft was dropping very sharply, like massive turbos, and we didn't understand why because we didn't get any alerts. We tried to back it up, and it got balanced after three, twenty, thirty

2:13seconds, and then started dropping again and balancing again. We saw that in front of the next to the cockpit, people ran and we understood that one of the pilots stabbed the other one and the passenger and the crew member took over, got control, and luckily we had another pilot who took control on the aircraft. It was very terrifying. You feel in a moment that you lose it. You are not among the living people. You lose it at one second, and you are not here. Well earlier this afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a TV address explaining what he understood had happened on board the plane. Is the Israeli? Citizens of Israel. This morning there was a very serious security incident on a flight from Dubai to Israel. Almost all the passengers on the flight were Israelis. During the flight,

3:13as they were approaching Israel, one of the pilots stabbed the other pilot and apparently tried to crash the plane with its passengers on board. I spoke with one of the Israeli passengers. He told me that the plane went into a spin and began to descend. He told me that somehow he managed to break into the cockpit with one of the crew members and together they overpowered the pilot who would carry out the stabbing while he was attempting to sabotage the aircraft's systems. Another air crew who was on the plane entered the cockpit and managed to stabilize the aircraft. I salute these heroes who demonstrated extraordinary resourcefulness and courage. They saved many lives and prevented a major incident. Well a short time ago I spoke to our correspondent John Donnison, who is at Ben Gourian Airport tonight where there were emotional scenes as passengers arrived. Yeah, earlier this evening the plane touched down and there is obviously a huge scrum of journalists here waiting to speak to them but also quite a lot of people chanting, waving

4:18Israelis flags and celebrating really that they have returned home safely after what must have been an absolutely terrifying ordeal. Absolutely and all we know at this stage really is that it seems to have started with a fight in the cockpit. Is it any clearer now as to what happened and chiefly why it happened? It's not totally clear to be honest and I think a lot of the details of what happened have come from testimony from the passengers on board. So when they got off in Saudi Arabia when they made an emergency landing some of them spoke to the media and it's them who have been giving the accounts. But I can tell you how my day unfolded this morning. First thing we heard rumours that a plane might have been hijacked and is rarely fighter jets, how the fighter jets had been scrambled but what actually seems to have happened is this was an attempted hijacking not by a passenger but by a pilot.

5:18So what it seems happened is midway through this flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv which was carrying roughly 170 people, 100 of them Israelis was the plane began to plummet downwards. It fell some 17,000 feet, around 5,000 meters in two minutes. Everything was clearly wrong. There was a fight in the cockpit between the two pilots. One of them ended up getting stabbed and then according to passengers the crew asked passengers to help and somehow it isn't clear how they got into the cockpit passengers and managed to wrestle one of the pilots to the ground and tie him down. And then there were two pilots traveling on at the back of the plane and they were then able to fly safely to Saudi Arabia for an emergency landing. I mean was that just a coincidence that there happened to be those two pilots there and thank goodness there were because otherwise this story could have had a very different ending.

6:19Yeah and to be honest I can't answer that question. The airline involved fly Dubai. They say they were on duty pilots. Maybe they were being transferred back to Tel Aviv for another flight. I just don't know the answer to that. Well we've heard from one passenger. I think he's being called Yanev. He's been greeted by the Prime Minister this evening. Mr Netanyahu has been calling him a hero. He apparently was one of those that broke into the cockpit and wrestled one of the pilots to the ground. Any more details of what happened in that altercation? No we don't know. I mean that individual who the Prime Minister here at the airport was embracing a short while ago. He still had blood on his shirt. So we're not clear with what the pilot was stabbed. We're not sure how there was a sharp object in the cockpit. All this really is just speculation and I think it's going to be in the next few days and weeks

7:20when we get a clear picture of what actually happened. You know Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a statement where he said this was an apparently an attempt to deliberately crash the plane by one of the pilots and it was only the intervention of the other pilots and the passengers who he called heroes who stopped that from happening. Other Israeli ministers, the National Security Minister, Ita Marbengeveh have gone further. They have called this a terrorist attack and said the plan was to bring this plane down and kill everyone on board, although he didn't present any evidence with that statement. And I think now look, investigators are going to be looking into the background of this pilot and what any possible motive there might have been and it's probably unwise to speculate too much about that at the moment. Just before you go, John, do we know any more about what's happened to the two pilots? Because you mentioned there was this emergency stop in Saudi Arabia. We understand one of the pilots was being treated the other arrested.

8:24Yes, that's right. So one of the pilots has been arrested and my understanding is that he is still in Saudi Arabia, although obviously Israeli security and intelligence officers will be very keen to speak to him too. And the other pilot, I believe, is receiving hospital treatment there. That's the BBC's John Donnison at Ben Gurion Airport. And in the past half an hour or so, it's been announced that fly Dubai has suspended all flights to and from Israel while an investigation into the incident today is conducted. Of course, all this happens less than a month from Israel's elections and where security concerns are already very high. Only last night, Prime Minister Netanyahu held a meeting with the leader of the opposition, Ya'yeh Lapid, about security into the run-up to the vote. Towsh Nida is a journalist with the times of Israel. So is it normal for such a meeting to take place and do we know what was discussed?

9:27The reason for the meeting was that Netanyahu issued a warning statement yesterday around lunchtime. He went to an Air Force base and said there is an imminent threat coming in to Israel before the election. And that took the opposition by surprise. They said if you know of something you need to brief us because that's according to the law. So the opposition leader forced Netanyahu to conduct this type of briefing. And then Mr. Lapid, the opposition leader, he went into the briefing and when he came out, he said, I hear general statements, I don't hear any specifics. Israel is under threat anyhow, 24-7 for many years. So Lapid said, we didn't hear any specifics. There's not like an Iranian lunch missiles coming in or anything like that. And when things took place today, when things happened, Netanyahu's spokesperson said, oh yeah, we told you so.

10:29It was something coming in. But Lapid said there was no specifics. You just said general things. So I mean, you know, this disaster, almost disaster, became immediately and a back and forth issue, instead of being just security issue, it became highly political issue. Right. So it's already becoming political. What's happened today? It's very political, yeah. Okay. That's interesting because obviously we're in the election campaign now. How might this affect that election? It's hard for me to predict because every day there is something big here. I mean, yesterday we had settler violence in the West Bank so bad that, you know, houses were torched. I mean, the violence came from the Jewish side. And every day there's like big news and it's all politicized. And obviously next week we have the October 7th memorials and October 7th three years mark and a very somber situation where most of the Israelis will go to the grave yards and to events. So I mean, it's really hectic.

11:32I mean, every day brings something else. And it's hard for me to predict, you know, what's going to take place in it's four weeks from now. Yes, I bet it is. Well, what we've got you tell is worth mentioning that this flight route is a fairly new thing, isn't it? It's only been in place since the signing of the Abraham accords between Dubai and Tel Aviv. But it's been really popular. Do you think people will have second thoughts about using this flight now? I think they will. Now it's been suspended for six days, but the connection between Dubai, I mean, you know, Abu Dhabi and Dubai and Israel is very, very good. I mean, this is, you know, those airlines kept on flying to Israel even during days when we had missiles coming in from Iran. So they were very persistent and the connections were very good and Israeli, you know, they love this service. So I hope it will be back in place and they will put more security measures, I think soon. You know, it's not new. It's like six or seven years since the signing of the Abraham accords. So we got used to it. Let's hope, you know, it will continue.

12:33And that was tell Schneider, the journalist with the times of Israel will be coming back to this story later, this hour, more witness testimony of what happened today. And there's lots of detail on the BBC live page with a minute by minute account of what happened today. Lots of videos on there and also comments from Israel as the day unfolded. Coming up in the next few minutes. Zero fiction, remarkable speed. And it can be paid for like it's 1919 with your energy savings. That's a new advert by a movie star Greta Garbo advertising ball bearings decades after her death. It was all made made with the help of AI, but would she approve of the use of her image for such a thing, the ethics of reanimating dead stars using AI coming up? And our top story as we've been hearing the Israeli Prime Minister says a co-pilot attempted to crash an Israeli bound flight from

13:37Dubai before being overcome by passengers and crew. This is Rebecca Kesby with NewsHour live from the BBC. Christopher Pike was due to be executed by lethal injection today in the US state of Tennessee. For a murder, she committed when she was 18 years old back in 1996. She and her then-boy friend beat, tortured and murdered another teenager, 19-year-old Colleen Slemer, who they messaged a job training camp for troubled teens just before an hour before the execution was due to take place today. News came through from Tennessee's Federal Court of Appeal saying it had issued a stay of execution following Pike's last minute plea for the case to be reexamined.

14:41The case has attracted lots of press attention, not least because if it goes ahead, it would be the first time a woman was executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Well, earlier, I spoke to Professor Sandra Babcock. She's an expert on gender and the death penalty at Cornell Law School in New York State. She's also worked on Christopher Pike's defense, and it was while Professor Babcock was on our earlier edition of NewsHour this afternoon that she heard about this stay of execution. She told us what happened. Well, about 930 this morning, Eastern time, the Federal Court of Appeals issued a stay of execution so that it could examine issues surrounding Christophe Pike's history of sexual abuse and rape. These are facts that were never considered by the jury that sentenced her to die, and the state of Tennessee very recently conceded that she is indeed the victim of serial

15:43sexual abuse and rape that these were documented crimes against Christophe. And this is a change in the state's position. It had previously called her a liar and tried to minimize her claims of abuse saying that she had fabricated them. So the state, the court of appeals issued a stay of execution so that it could take a closer look at that legal issue. And do we know the timing of how long that might take and what may happen next? The torturous thing is that we actually don't know. The state of Tennessee is still trying to execute Christophe. They have asked the Supreme Court of the United States, which as you know is a very conservative court, to vacate the stay of execution so that the execution can go forward. If that happened, it would foreclose the ability of this court of appeals from examining these issues that are so important to understanding why it is Christophe Pike is on death road

16:44a day. And she's been on death row for 30 years. I don't know whether you've had a chance to speak to her since that stay of execution happened, but I mean, it was only about an hour also before she was due to die. How does she process that? It's really impossible to process something like that. It is absolutely psychological torture. It is in my mind akin to a mock execution. And this is the nature, the barbaric nature of the death penalty in this country. And we, instead of looking at whether this is the kind of person that the state should be coldly in calculating and deliberate way, executing for a crime that she committed at the age of 18. This the state is determined to go forward at any cost. And you know, we shouldn't be in such a rush

17:45to to exterminate human life. If we have a death penalty, we should make sure that the people that we are killing are the most irredeemable and depraved killers that is not the case with Christophe Pike. That's Professor Sandra Babcock there. She's an expert on gender and the death penalty at Cornell Law School in New York State. And she's also been working on Christophe Pike's defence. Well, I want to be alone. Where have you been? I suppose I can cancel the other country. I just want to be alone. You're going to be very much alone, my dear madam. This is the end. That of course was Greta Garbo uttering the famous line from the 1932 film Grand Hotel. Now 36 years after she died and 85 years after she retired completely from acting, the Swedish born actress is making a return to our screens. This time in AI form as an advertisement

18:50for ball bearings manufacturer SKF. Zero fiction remarkable speed. And it can be paid for like it's 1919 with her energy savings. Now you don't know. I want to be alone. That's the artificial intelligence generated version of Greta Garbo there. Well, the rationale behind the AI resurrection is that Garbo's second ever on-screen role was in a promotional film for the Swedish industrial giant. And her appearance has raised questions about the use of AI to resurrect the dead and over who gets the right to choose what to do with a dead actor's image. Earlier I spoke to Dr Dominic Lee's. He's an associate film professor of filmmaking at Reading University who specialises in the use of generative AI in the screen industries. And I

19:52asked him what he made of using AI to bring back dead actors to life. It's a very murky legal zone. The big questions are who controls us after we're dead and law internationalist to kind of work out those questions who controls our voice, who controls our faces and our images both while we're alive and after our death post-mortem. So we don't know the specifics of this but I mean we do know that Garbo retired decades ago. Didn't want to do any more acting and was famously a recluse. I mean we don't know whether legally I suppose her estate does have ownership but over this. Have you managed to read into that? Well, we've got a new situation in which the estate of a celebrity no longer just handles the financial affairs and so on after their death

20:53but now controls their likeness and can deploy that for financial gain. And that would not have been something that Greta Garbo was aware of when her executives were appointed. So this is a new situation we're encountering. In terms of artistically I mean obviously AI is being used in all sorts of areas of film in many different ways in special effects and in music as well but ethically there are so many questions around the use of AI in the creative industries. This is a huge question for the creative industries and for performers. We found that in the UK voice actors have lost 70 or 80% of their income in the last couple of years because of the advent of voice cloning. So companies are able to sell voice clones to perform audio performances

21:54rather than hiring actors to do that work. And now we're moving on to the situate the point where an actor's likeness can be reproduced visually. So that danger for moves on from voice actors to screen actors. And briefly of course famously James Earl Jones the voice of Darth Vader he did allow his likeness and his voice to be used for that character I think. Yes and there's other examples as well. I mean back in 2021 Bruce Willis allowed his himself to be faked for a Russian cell phone advert. And so it's not unprecedented what Greta Garbo is doing today. That's Dr Dominic Lee's there associate professor of filmmaking at Redding speaking to us earlier and as I was listening to that I just see this from the AFP news agency reporting that Google is restricting access to a new AI model over safety concerns that it looks as if it's the Gemini 4 model but will bring you more details as we get them.

22:59Welcome back to news hour. 50 years ago a relationship began in a BBC studio a young cellist called Stephen Isselis heard a performance on a very special cello astradivarius known as the Marquis de Corde Berron. Little did he know that years later he would become its custodian when Stephen was loaned that cello to care for it and share it with the rest of us to mark the 300th year since it was built. He's issued a special collection of 10 discs to which it tells the story of their partnership. He and the Marquis came into another BBC studio earlier and he's been speaking to my colleague Chloe Tilly. This is the Marquis de Corde Berron astradivarius of 1726 300 years ago. And the Marquis was apparently a French aristocrat who got guillotineed and the revolution so my poor cello is probably still suffering from post-traumatic stress but he seems okay now.

24:04I heard this cello when I was a little boy and then much later I said in next to my sort of best friend and after one movement he turned to be said that's the cello for you. I mean that was years ago and I had no idea I'd be playing it then. How did it find its way to you or you to it? Well it belongs to the Royal Academy of Music and so they offered it to me which was very kind of them. Of course has to roll over. It's not a loan for life. Well I think it's a loan for life. I put this to them that if they ever take it away from me I'll kill myself but they don't quite agree with that. Obviously we're on the radio so people aren't able to see it. Just explained to us the beauty of what I see before me. Well it's a rich sort of quite dark brown with this beautiful stripes down it from the original tree which apparently may have been it may really be true that it was cut down at midnight on a full moon and a beautiful scroll. I don't think it affects the sound but it's just a stradivarius sort of showing what he can do. Talk to us if you were about the music that you're

25:13releasing to mark the 300 birthday, 300 you birthday of your cello. Talk to us about the choices that you made. I suppose the most important is the Bach sweets. I never felt I'd be ready to record the Bach sweets and then my father said look I'm 90. I want you to record the Bach sweets. It was very nice because he particularly loved the sixth the last of them Bach sweets and he came the day I recorded that and sat in the box. I do believe and this is entirely my feeling I may be completely wrong that it represents in the Bach sweets the resurrection. It's full of joy that piece and I can see why he loved it.

26:13What a treat for the ears that was that was Stephen Isselis and my colleague Chloe Tilly and we also heard from Marquis de Corbeau, of course. You're listening to News Hour Live from the BBC. I'm Rebecca Kesby. Now here in the UK the Prime Minister Andy Burnham says he believes Iran played a part in the security incident at RAF Fairford in southern England earlier this week. Five British men were arrested then released on police bail as the investigation continues a move that has been criticised by the US President Donald Trump. RAF Fairford is used extensively by US forces. Mr Burnham has been speaking to our political editor Chris Mason. It's ongoing. I have held a cobra meeting as I've been here at the conference in Liverpool. We are on top of it in every possible way imaginable. The police in

27:14Blastershire, our counterterrorism police have done an outstanding job. I thank them for that. We will say more in due course but we can confirm our belief that we believe Iran to have played a part. And on what basis do you come to that belief? Well I can't go into all of those details but obviously I wouldn't say it lightly. Okay. For people looking in at what's happened seeing that five men were arrested on suspicion of terrorism offenses then released on bail President Trump has said they let them go seriously bad people. Can you reassure people that the authorities have got a grip on this? I think people need to understand that you know what it says released and that isn't as people might kind of think. It's obviously with the strictest possible bail conditions. It's so released, isn't it? The authorities have this under as I say the strongest grip and the closest control and I can assure you of that. So you can reassure people that they're on it? Yes indeed and as I say we've been talking to counterparts in the United States

28:20all week to explain what is happening here, how things are being done. I have complete confidence in the way British security services are handling this. Well earlier I spoke to the BBC's Nomea Ickbull for the latest on the investigation and it's important to mention that Iran has denied any involvement in this incident but I asked Nomea how significant the Prime Minister's comments are today. I think they're really significant because it's the clearest public indication we've had from the UK government that it believes Iran was involved. Up until now police and ministers have been way more guarded saying they were investigating every possibility and that included whether people might have been acting knowingly or unknowingly on behalf of the foreign state and now the Prime Minister's we heard there speaking to Chris Mason saying there are strong indications that Iran played a part and as he also we heard there he didn't publicly say what Iran allegedly did,

29:20didn't give any evidence and then as you mentioned that Iran categorically denies the involvement. Yes it's significant but it's all still very unclear I think. Yeah it is isn't it although we have had one new detail emerging in the past couple of days and that is that it seems one of those arrested phoned the police himself. It's slightly flabbergasting as it's all it's such a curious twist because yes it came from one of the suspects he apparently called the UK emergency number at around 1245 AM so that was almost an hour before a local farmer said she spotted the vans and call police herself police then responded to a sort of combination of information including that call in the farmer's report. We don't know why this suspect made that call there are some suggestions potentially checking the security around the base rather than an attempt to carry out an immediate attack also was it a dry run testing how the security response might work. I think there's also this possibility that maybe they simply got cold feet or became concerned about what was happening

30:21contacted police but I should emphasise that these are all theories is there's absolutely no evidence or nothing we have so far to say exactly what that phone calls about. Yeah we're in the realms of speculation here really firmly aren't we nommier but politically how awkward has all this been for the British that the Americans have a being quite critical about the release of these five men and B being talking to the press and actually giving more details than the British authorities have. I mean it won't be helpful but I think it's also not surprising that President Trump is more forthcoming he's generally always more willing to talk publicly about what he thinks the US knows what he believes it is awkward because of course this is an active counterterrorism investigation British officials are much more constrained in what they can say I mean Donald Trump he said to I would not have released them his secretary of state Mark Haruby went further saying the incident clearly involved the hands of a foreign asset although I should point out he didn't actually provide any evidence and then Donald Trump's basically saying the US knows way more about the case

31:24and it's prepared to say publicly I think it is awkward and it maybe creates tension but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's detrimental for the UK and US relationship the British Prime Minister is actually saying the opposite he says the British and Americans are working very closely together very very briefly Nomiya it's a really important airfield this for the United States isn't it has been used in their campaign with Iran recently it's got a very long runway I think yeah I mean as you mentioned that it is really important it's this you know I think even in the US people are probably googling what is RAF effort but it is one of the UK's most important military sites and as you mentioned there it's it's played a really significant part by the US military in operations against Iran the BBC's Nomiya Ikbal with the latest

32:25the last US and British forces left Iraq today after more than two decades of military presence in the country it follows an agreement between the US and the Iraqi government signed about two years ago to withdraw foreign troops by the end of this month in the past decade US and UK forces in Iraq have been part of the international coalition to help defeat the extremist Islamic state group Iraqi leaders now will be taking on full responsibility for all security affairs and Iraq has declared a four day public holiday dubbed sovereignty days to mark the occasion these Iraqis have been speaking to the BBC about the pullout of US and British forces as Iraqi citizens we are disappointed to see foreign forces particularly US troops on Iraqi soil from our perspective their presence amounted to an occupation we hope the decision to withdraw the US forces will be fully implemented

33:25although foreign forces have now left the country their remains are possibility that the United States could seek to exert control over Iraq's oil wealth we hope that in the coming days and years we will see no US occupation forces in Iraq and that Iraq will regain its full sovereignty free from any external interference or dictates we the people of Iraq reiterate our demand for the withdrawal of all foreign forces particularly Turkish troops stationed in the north of our beloved homeland as well as US forces based at military installations across our cherished country well earlier I spoke to Victoria Taylor she was US Deputy Assistant Assistant Secretary for Iraq and Iran at the US State Department between 2023 and 25 now she's director of the Iraq initiative at the Atlantic Council think tank I asked her first to give us an idea of the country's security situation at the moment well I think the security situation is dramatically different than 2011 when

34:29the US first withdrew from Iraq right now ISIS does not hold in a territory in Iraq and while there still remains a few ISIS cells I think the threat is vastly diminished in both Iraq and Syria and in fact the greatest challenge to Iraq security is the Iran-backed militias which have over the past several years been very active in striking the coalition military presence well they are a real worry and concern for many aren't they and extremists generally they don't do seem to be quite a few in Iraq at the moment and poised to cause problems and not just in the north perhaps where these troops had been for the US and the UK but further south in the country that's right and I think that we've seen during the Iran war that the militias of course some of them take direction straight from the Iranian regime it happened a very potent

35:31tool for the Iranians to strike the coalition to strike the Kurdistan region but they've also been very active in striking the Gulf and so there is certainly a very potent tool of the Iranians to place pressure on the US and the Gulf and all Iraqi forces in a position to be able to defend the country now I mean people will remember about 10 years or so when the forces of the Islamic state swept across the north of the country and Iraqi soldiers just sort of fled in their wake yeah I think the Iraqi security forces of today are certainly much stronger and more capable and in fact one of the reasons that we do have such a sizable presence of militias is because many of these militias took up arms to fight ISIS as well I think the challenge the Iraqi government has is that many of these militias do not take direction from the Iraqi government and in fact take

36:31direction from Tehran so in terms of the United States involvement though some will be critical that you know many will point to the US-led invasion in 2003 with the provisor of finding weapons of mass destruction those weapons were never actually found and ever since that US-led invasion there's just been you know violent civil war and one you know paramilitary uprising after another yeah I think certainly the departure of US troops right now marks the conclusion of a very complicated relationship between the US military and Iraq and you know many Iraqis have both opposed the US invasion but at the same time welcome to the fall of Saddam Hussein while the Iraqi government needed the US and the coalition forces to defeat ISIS over the past years the Iraqi political leadership has really sought the end of this US military presence

37:37which has been certainly unpopular among a percentage of Iraqis and when you look at the wider picture across the region obviously the US still involved with a hot war with Iran but President Trump is celebrating the new president in Syria who himself is a former militant how do you see it is there a co cohesive policy from the United States at the moment I believe that the US departure really is part of President Trump's vision to end you know what he would call a forever war and to reduce the overall military presence in the Middle East you know it is a contradiction that that is happening at the same time that the US is involved in a protracted conflict in Iran but at the same time I think the fact that this departure moved forward at a moment of regional

38:38conflict just I think is a further demonstration the extent to which domestic politics in the United States have really changed and many Americans support the end of US military engagement in Iraq. Victoria Taylor there formerly the US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq and Iran at the US State Department. More to come on news now let me just update you on the Man City story. Former Manchester City Manager Pep Guardiola has shared a message of support for the club and its fans after City was found guilty of inflating its revenues. He said he'll always be behind the club its owner, staff and the fans. This is Rebecca Kesby with News Hour Live from the BBC. Back to more on our top story now the apparent well hijacking I guess of a fly Dubai plane which landed in Saudi Arabia.

39:43Noah Spiegel is a journalist with the Haretz newspaper in Israel. Her 74-year-old mother was on that flight and after collecting her from Ben Gurion Airport and just before we came on air Noah sent us this voice note recalling her mother's experience. So my mom Dalia Spiegel she was a trip to Nepal and yesterday they flew from Kathmandu and they were supposed to go to Israel via Dubai and this morning we heard about the airplane and we have understand quite quickly that our mom on the flight at the beginning the report was that the airplane got kidnapped and it took us I think maybe two hours till we got her on the phone. She told us that first they felt like the airplane is kind of jumping in the air and then it started to dive down very quickly to the ground. There was a child who went to the

40:51Lou next to the cockpit and her mother was standing next to the door and she heard what's going on in the cockpit and she starts screaming. That's my mom says yeah. Then some Israelis, guys, young guys who was in the front of the airplane jumped into the cockpit and they caught the guy that stabbed the pilot and they managed to get control on him and get control on the airplane and stopped the plane from falling down from diving down and it was a very stressful situation. My mom said she scared but she saw it going to be all right. Something in her heart told her that it's going to be all right and then they landed safely. It was a long time this whole

41:51fighting with the guy who stabbed the pilot. She said it felt like a terror attack, completely terror attack and then they landed on the Saudi and she said the Saudi and treated them very well. They were very nice. They gave them food, they gave them medical treatment. Took a long, long hours but now she's safe at home, a bit shocked. I don't think she understand yet what she was going through but I hope she would be all right. Physically she's okay and I really hope that no one's going to go through what they were going through today. It's horrible thing. That's no a spigil of the Hareds newspaper. She's a journalist and her mom was on board that flight and just as she was speaking about how good the Saudis had been, we've had

42:54this in from the Israeli Minister of Culture and Sport, Mickey Zohar thanking the officials in Saudi Arabia. This is online. He says on behalf of the people of Israel, I thank the Saudi people for the warm welcome and kindness they showed the Israeli passengers rescued this morning. He said, God willing may peace come to us all and the people of Israel and the message included video of Saudi medical professionals treating those passengers that had been injured in the incident. You with NewsHour live from the BBC. 6 flags, 1 flags, 1 bun, have more fun, close to home of the all new X2 coaster. Well now that is an advert for the X2 roller coaster at 6 flags magic mountain amusement park. The X2 was once one of America's most popular roller coasters but now the Californian attraction has been closed by its owner after more than 100 people came forward, claiming they'd

43:59suffered brain injuries having written on it while announcing the closure the president of the amusement park said that the K2 had passed a range of safety tests but he conceded that the ride had lost the confidence of guests. Kyongla is one of the CNN journalists who's been carrying out an investigation into the injury claims and she told me more about the ride. It's not one of those old school roller coasters you may have grown up with where you sit in and harnesses on or something is on your lap. You're almost swinging as if hanging from the top of the roller coaster and the force of it is moving you left and right forwards backwards. There are two extreme sheer drops at nearly 70 miles per hour and so all of that movement, all of that speed is what led to according to surgeons of at least two people sub-dural hematomas. That's basically a brain bleed and it happened immediately to these women and they were immediately taken to

45:04the emergency room. Both of them actually within just six days of each other ended up in the exact same hospital. Right, so I mean I was going to point out I think this is a legal case now so we need to be a little bit careful about that because I think it's ongoing but I mean what kind of injuries are people reporting to you and to the lawyers about what they've what happened to them on this ride. I've spoken to three different either their families or the riders themselves. One of the women could not speak because she's still in a coma and connected to breathing tubes in hospital. What the families or the victims themselves have described is that they have gone into the hospital. They had their skulls cut open after riding this ride and their lawyers say that it was connected they believe to this ride. The injuries are basically consistent with the type of sudden head trauma you might experience in something very fast suddenly stopping and so that's

46:06really the concern here is could this have happened and something as simple as something supposed to be pleasurable and fun that you pay for to go with your kids. Yeah, I mean I'm not sure everyone would agree that rollercoasters are fun and they can't be divided opinion. But I mean is it possible to know whether you know some people are more susceptible than others to reacting to this thing? I mean I'm thinking about height and weight ratio things like that. That we don't know. I mean that flat out we just simply don't know. We do know that thousands of people rode this ride and we're only seeing a fraction of them coming forward with lawyers. It is the three people that I saw. One was very small and young. The other woman was a little larger and 10 years older. So we have a 25 year old a woman who is 39 and then an older gentleman probably in about his 60s and he was quite larger. So three different very different types of people, very different bodies and different ages. So just to be clear and very briefly this ride is closed

47:07but the rest of the park stays open for those that enjoy this kind of dead building. Indeed. Keungla the CNN journalist behind that investigation into the K2 roller coaster which we're told is now closed. That's it for this edition of News Hour from me and the team. Thanks for listening.