On Wednesday, tragedy was averted after the co-pilot of a Flydubai flight from Saudi Arabia to Tel Aviv, reportedly carrying more than 100 Israelis, stabbed the captain in the cockpit, causing the jet to plunge thousands of feet, before a passenger and crew member subdued the attacker allowing another crew member to take control of the plane. Despite strong appearances to the contrary, CNN found a guest who wouldn't rule out "workplace violence" as the cause of the incident.
On the 1pm edition of CNN's News Central, co-host Boris Sanchez did start the show by calling the incident, "A suspected mid-flight hijacking attempt." He then threw it to Jeremy Diamond at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, who played some chilling video of what took place on the plane.
DIAMOND: On the ground, you can see both pilots bloodied. One of them appears to have been restrained.
Both of them are on the ground, clearly in need of medical attention. And what you hear from the men in that video, some of the Israeli passengers, is talking about one of the pilots having attacked the other one and the fact that they then rushed into the cockpit and were able to get that plane back up and to avoid it from crashing into the ground.
After playing still more video of the chaos on board, Diamond made sure to point out that it was too early to draw any conclusions about why this apparent terrorist did what he did.
DIAMOND: What's also still unknown, not only to the passengers on board, but to Israeli authorities, is what exactly were the motivations, the motives of this pilot who stabbed the captain of the plane and apparently tried to crash it into the ground.
We know that Israeli officials suspect potential terrorist motivations, but none of that has been confirmed as of yet.
Next, co-host Brianna Keilar innocently revealed even more evidence that this was a nefarious plot as she introduced CNN Transportation Analyst Mary Schiavo.
KEILAR: Mary, according to Prime Minister Netanyahu, passengers believe the co-pilot tried to sabotage the aircraft systems and crash the plane after stabbing his colleague. What evidence would investors find of that in this case then?
Schiavo cited the passengers who entered the cockpit, radar sources and flight data recorders, before concluding with, "So, so much evidence already, but this is a hugely important international investigation for security going forward, huge."
Sanchez then turned to Georgetown University's Donell Harvin, former D.C. Chief of Homeland Security, who actually downplayed the likelihood that this was a hijacking, downplayed the entire issue of motive, before making a shocking statement.
SANCHEZ: Donell, what's your reaction to hearing that, at least according to Israeli officials, this was an attempted hijacking?
HARVIN: Yes, well, the there's another narrative out there that the airline saying it's still being investigated. Boris, there's a spectrum of issues. I don't think that the motive right now is important. It could be something as benign as workplace violence all the way up to a terrorist issue.
Workplace violence!? And stabbing a pilot is "benign"?
Harvin would then claim the big issue is how the pilot got on board with a knife, to which Schiavo responded, "So while I -- I immediately thought a knife, how did he get a knife through security, well, flight crew have the special lanes and they don't get as much security, but there's also weapons within the cockpit, like the flight axe and other things."
Meanwhile, at the same time, over on Fox News's America Reports, co-host John Roberts went further in his open then Sanchez did, calling it, "An attempted hijacking, what's being described as a jihadist terror attack."
Where did he get "described as a jihadist attack" from? As Fox's Foreign Correspondent Jeff Paul would soon report from Tel Aviv, "Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is calling the incident an attempted jihadist terror attack." That was never mentioned by CNN's Diamond in his report from Tel Aviv.
Roberts then brought on former Counterterrorism Coordinator in the first Trump administration, Jeff Paul, who far from raising "workplace violence" said, "The thought that kept going through my mind, this is what happened on 9/11. This is like the Flight 93 scenario but an alternative universe where the passengers come a heroic passengers are able to gain access to the cockpit, take over the flight and prevent the terrorists from maintaining control."
You can watch part the Fox segment in the video below.
The difference in content and analysis between the two networks was significant, with Fox unafraid to go where CNN mostly avoided. They have an aversion to jumping to a radical-Islam narrative. This is CNN!
