Engineer, Scientist, Jack of all trades. I had been planning to start a blog at some point and had collected my thoughts. Posting them on X now instead.
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The official verdict is absolute Crap!
I'm a Commercial pilot (Complex piston singles) and I have followed this story from the beginning. The official story is pathetic. This will go down in history as one best examples of aviation bravery.
For this story to have the happy ending that it did, 3 things had to happen perfectly:
First, Cpt. Smit who while on the floor (being attacked with an axe!!!) thought "these are my last moments, but I cant let these people die" and somehow opened the cockpit door. Without his bravery and determination, Everybody dies no question.
Second the passengers Yaniv and Yitzhack rushed the cockpit the minute they heard screams. Dont minimize this. Most people in a situation like this would freeze in their seats. Not to mention getting the the front of the plane in a zero G nose over. I'm assuming IDF training (mandatory for all Israelis) but even then excellent reactions under pressure. By rushing to the front immediately, they were on the other side of the door the second that Cpt Smit opened it. The IDF training also probably had a hand in their ability to rapidly neutralize the co-pilot.
Yaniv taking the stick and pulling out of the dive is critical simply because there was no time otherwise. At the rate of decent by that point there is maybe 30s to impact if they keep diving (and they were already past Vne)
However, contrary to popular male ego, a non pilot successfully recovering the plane has odds near zero. Commercial aircraft are huge and have massive momentum. Even in a small plane, if you are too heavy on the controls nothing happens for ten seconds, then next thing you know you are upside down. The most likely outcome after a non-pilot pulling out of a dive would be overcontrolling and triggering a stall. Fortunately (according to Yaniv's interview) the relief pilot took over just as he leveled the plane.
The relief pilots being on board was fortunate, the relief pilot managing to take over the controls before Yaniv could trigger a stall was perfect timing. The pilots were not just random pilots or random airline pilots, they were the relief crew which meant they had hundreds if not thousands of hours in that exact model. Why is this important? Because the co-pilot had smashed the instruments (once again from Yaniv's interview) and the rudder was damaged from exceeding Vne. The relief pilots could handle this as a routine emergency, for a pilot unfamiliar with that airplane and instruments smashed it would be a insurmountable challenge.
Finally the Pilot who thought he was going to die was in luck because on board was a dentist. A dental surgeon no less. Not quite the same an ER doc, but enough to stop major arterial bleeding from multiple wounds.
If somebody doesnt make a great movie out of this it would be a crime. This is aviation history being made.
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Just found this in another post. Lots of detail from a passenger onboard
youtu.be/39QxhRn2v3I
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Holy cow. Too late to edit my post, but here is a picture of the tail. Absolutely critical that pilots on board had 1000s of hours in 737, this is a true emergency and great airmanship to get this on the ground. (Hat tip to Boeing as well)
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What a horrible piece minimizing the bravery of the Pilot who saved 180 people.
I saw the actual interview of Captain Smit Machchhar last night. Today this Reuters article was on my google feed.
In the actual interview (which was a mix of Hindi and Gujarati), the pilot calmly recounts what happened in the cockpit. After the surprise attack, while the pilot was on the ground (being attacked with an axe!!), he said to himself "The door is right there, I knew that it was last few minutes of my life, but I was not going to let those people die". No Tears, just brave determination. The Reuters Article frames it as "desperate effort to open the cockpit door to seek help"
In the interview there are no tears when describing being attacked with an axe while on the ground, only determination. Smit only gets emotional when he tells Modi that Modi was his Idol and Modi praises him and his parents for raising him with such values. In the Reuters Piece, it makes it sound like he is crying about being attacked.
Imaging being on the ground getting attacked with an axe and the only think that you think about is "Im probably going to die, but I cant let everybody else die" Who would try to take one of the most heroic acts of bravery in aviation history and spin it as emotional desperation?
Disgraceful!
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Feature request: add a public reply notice when a user replies directly to someone they have blocked.
Problem
People can reply to a comment, then block the commenter so that person cannot respond. Bystanders see an unanswered reply and often assume the other person had no response. That creates a last-word advantage without changing the public visibility of the reply.
Proposal
Show a small public note on a reply only when all of these are true:
User A’s post is a direct reply to user B’s post.
A currently has B blocked.
The note is attached only to that direct reply.
Suggested copy: “@B can’t reply here.”
Do not show the note if:
A blocked B but never replied to B
A replies to a third person in the same thread
A only mutes B
A blocks B and leaves the conversation
Why this is narrow enough
Genuine abuse blocking usually means block and walk away. People protecting themselves rarely keep arguing under the blocked person’s comment. The notice would target the case where blocking is used to silence a direct counterpart while still posting under that counterpart’s comment.
Why it is easy
X already uses the pairwise block flag to decide whether B can like or reply to A. This only needs that existing check when rendering a direct reply from A to B. It does not require a public block count, a block-rate score, or scanning an account’s whole block list.
Timing
Keep the note on that reply as long as the block is active, including if A replied first and blocked B afterward.
What this does not do
It does not publish who blocks whom on profiles. It does not label someone a frequent blocker. It does not restrict blocking, muting, or safety tools. It only tells readers that the person being answered cannot answer back in that specific reply.
Related existing behavior
X already lets a blocked user see a reply from the person who blocked them when that reply is on their own post. This request is the public counterpart for bystanders, limited to direct replies.
Expected effect
It removes the incentive to take the last word by blocking the only person who can answer that comment, without weakening blocking as a safety tool.
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The $0.12 per kWh is the cost figures from 2005 for maintaining the 2005 grid adjusted for inflation. Residental demand is almost flat. During that time PGE spent 14 billion for upgrades. For 2025-2030 PGE is planning for another 11 Billion of upgrades.
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All of the information available about Cannabis is severely biased. The studies people quote to say that it is relatively safe were done in the 80's when the THC concentration was 3-5% and it was 20x the cost. Even more recent studies are flawed as all Cannabis used in US studies must come from a single strain that is about 10%THC. By contrast the vapes people buy are 90%+ TCH. In short there is no data on the effects of cheap 90+% THC.
THC shuts down activity in the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for judgement and impulse control. That is the part of the brain that develops until you are 25 (and why car insurance gets so much cheaper after 25). Unfortunately, the more THC you use the more the brain activity is inhibited. Its especially damaging from teen years to 25 or so as the prefrontal cortex is developing during that time.
There was a famous girl who was isolated until age 13 and she was never able to learn language as she did not exercise that part of her brain while it was developing and after it stopped developing, she lost the ability to learn language.
We are watching in real time are all these teenagers that are using large amounts of THC and basically turning off their pre-frontal cortex during the years that it is developing. We will end up with a group of 25 year olds that have the maturity and impulse control of 11 year olds and it will never get better for the rest of their lives. I'm 100% sure its contributing to the crazy driving we see on the roads and it wouldn't surprise me if it is responsible for some of the crime as well.
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Does this mean that illegal immigrants are eligible to take very limited kidneys away from US citizens? mprnews.org/story/2026/02/06…
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Lying by omission is so bad now that if you want all the facts you will have to check sources from both sides of the left and right alternate realities.
🧵THREAD🧵
There’s another media hoax from Minnesota. Legacy outlets churned out headlines about a 5-year-old child used as “bait” by ICE.
The reality? The kid’s father, an illegal immigrant, abandoned him when he saw the agents. As even these outlets later concede.
Look ⤵️
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