At 6:50 a.m. Wednesday morning, Flydubai Flight FZ1073 departed Dubai for Tel Aviv carrying approximately 180 passengers, most of them Israeli citizens. Somewhere over Saudi airspace, the Omani copilot pulled a knife and plunged it into Captain Smit Machchhar, an Indian national, then grabbed the controls and sent the Boeing 737 into a nosedive — from 33,000 feet to 15,000 feet before anyone could stop him.

CNN's security analyst called it "possible workplace violence."

Donell Harvin appeared on CNN's News Central while the story was still breaking and offered that helpful assessment. The copilot of a commercial airliner had just stabbed the captain in the cockpit, attempted to crash a plane full of Israeli passengers, and triggered an emergency landing at Tabuk airport in Saudi Arabia. And the best CNN could muster was a framework borrowed directly from the 2009 Fort Hood playbook.

The media keeps pulling this same stunt, trying to downplay Islamic terrorism and keep the public from knowing the truth. After Army Major Nidal Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" and murdered 13 people at Fort Hood, the Obama administration classified it as "workplace violence" for years. It took until 2015 for the victims to receive Purple Hearts. CNN apparently learned nothing from that grotesque episode — or learned exactly the wrong lesson.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz had no trouble identifying what happened. He called it "an attempted jihadist terror attack, which was thwarted only thanks to the bravery of several Israeli passengers who broke into the cockpit and overpowered the terrorist." Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir went further, saying the copilot wanted to "crash Flydubai's FZ1073 and kill Israelis." Israeli officials publicly ruled out mental health issues as an explanation.

Passenger Hila Gaier described the moment: "Suddenly, the plane plummeted. The communications and electricity and screens cut out, and we were diving down, then we straightened out, then dived." Passenger Tzvika Manes was one of the Israelis who stormed the cockpit. "Three of us jumped on him and neutralized him," he said, adding that they bound the attacker with corded headphones. Russian and Ukrainian pilots traveling as passengers then helped land the aircraft safely.

CNN's initial on-screen reporting described the attack as a "violent incident between pilots." Not a stabbing. Not a hijacking attempt. A "violent incident" — the kind of language you'd use to describe a shoving match at a Little League game. MRC Video flagged the coverage, noting that CNN's framing skipped Israel's terrorism designation entirely in favor of passive, motive-free language.

The network that spent four years treating every Trump rally as an insurrection-in-waiting managed to watch an Omani copilot stab a captain and nosedive a plane full of Israelis and think: maybe he was just having a rough shift.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu identified Captain Machchhar by name and credited the Israeli passengers who intervened. Flydubai suspended all flights to Israel pending investigation. Saudi authorities arrested the copilot. Every government involved used the word "attack" or "terror" — except the American cable news network covering it.

The Fort Hood framing lasted years and cost real people real benefits they'd earned. The "workplace violence" label wasn't a mistake. It was a choice — one that prioritized a narrative over the dead. CNN made the same choice on live television, fifteen years later, about a plane that dropped 18,000 feet in seconds because a man with a knife wanted to kill Jews.