Good morning. A pilot allegedly tried to crash a plane full of passengers this week, and they stopped him. That's not a normal Thursday, and it's where we're starting today.

A FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv was diverted to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday after one pilot allegedly stabbed the other and tried to crash the aircraft mid-flight. Flight-tracking data shows the plane plunged from nearly 34,000 feet to under 17,000 feet in about a minute before crew and passengers regained control and diverted to Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Everyone on board survived.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacking pilot, an Omani national, had undergone "Islamist radical indoctrination" and tried to carry out what Israel's defense minister called a "jihadist terrorist attack." The injured captain, an Indian national, is in stable condition in a Saudi hospital. The attacker is being interrogated by Saudi authorities, and the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel have all opened separate investigations. A second FlyDubai aircraft retrieved the stranded passengers and flew them on to Tel Aviv.

Why it matters, beyond the obvious: aviation security typically focuses on passengers, not the two people with their hands on the controls. A single determined crew member nearly brought down a commercial jet with everyone on it, and did so during a period when Gulf-Israel flight corridors, only normalized in recent years, are already politically sensitive. Expect airlines and regulators to revisit cockpit-access protocols in the coming weeks.

The human detail worth sitting with: it was passengers, not just the surviving pilot, who physically helped secure the aircraft. One of them, Assaf Regavim, described storming the cockpit to stop the attack.

While national attention has focused on the death toll, a second, slower crisis is unfolding in Nepal's tourism belt. Peak season, which normally starts right after monsoon ends in late August, has instead brought cancellations. Tourism accounts for nearly 8% of Nepal's GDP and employs more than a million people, concentrated in places like Pokhara, the main gateway for Himalayan trekking. Resort workers there describe business down sharply as travelers postpone trips, even in areas untouched by the actual flooding, because international headlines don't distinguish between a flooded district and an unaffected one.

On relief efforts: the Nepal Army has rescued 684 people from this monsoon season's floods and landslides so far, and Nepal Telecom has restored the fibre network in Rasuwagadhi and Betrawati that was damaged in August. The Baglung death toll holds at 12, with one person still missing.

One to flag for travel-dependent readers: if you know anyone running a tour, guesthouse or trekking business right now, this is the month that decides their year.

*The data presented below are from the official sites of NEPSE, NASDAQ and London Bullion Market Association respectively.

🇺🇸 Nasdaq: closed Thursday around 26,861, up roughly 0.2%, as tech strength offset a weaker Dow and Treasury yields pushing toward their highest levels in over two decades.

🥇 Gold: trading near $4,182 an ounce, up about 0.6% on the day, holding steady after this week's dip.

🥈 Silver: around $61.2 an ounce, up roughly 1.4%, outpacing gold's gain.

Covered above — the FlyDubai cockpit attack and its fallout. See Main Story.

No major new developments since Tuesday's Anthropic/OpenAI story. The sector's attention has shifted toward earnings (Micron) and economic data rather than fresh safety headlines.

Micron's actual fiscal Q4 results are in: adjusted EPS of $33.42 against a $31.61 estimate, and revenue of $54.23 billion against $51.07 billion expected, a clean beat on both lines. Revenue nearly quadrupled from $11.32 billion a year earlier. The company guided next quarter even higher, to roughly $61.5 billion in revenue.

Despite that, the stock barely moved in early trading. Analysts say it's less about the quarter and more about where expectations already sat: Micron has gained over 500% in the past year, so even a clean beat-and-raise was largely priced in already. JPMorgan and Goldman both stayed bullish regardless, with JPMorgan calling it a "decisive beat-and-raise."

Why it matters: this is the clearest "priced for perfection" moment in the AI trade so far. When a company can beat by 7% on both revenue and profit and the stock shrugs, it tells you how much optimism was already baked in.

Last week's question, on AI self-regulation trust, is still collecting replies — thank you to everyone who's written in. We'll share the breakdown soon.

New question: Would you fly a Gulf-Israel route again after this week's news? Reply with A, B or C:

Answers just below. No peeking. 👇

Priced for perfection (say it: PRYSD for per-FEK-shun)

Meaning: when a stock's price already assumes everything will go right, so even genuinely good news isn't enough to push it higher.

Example: "Micron beat on every metric and the stock barely budged, a classic case of being priced for perfection."

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