After video appearing to be from an airport surveillance camera was shown on CNN last week in the wake of the fatal American Airlines jet collision with an Army helicopter, two airport authority employees were arrested and charged with leaking official airport records. The video aired on Friday morning on CNN and provided a new visual angle of the crash between the jet and the Blackhawk helicopter. CNN anchor Kate Bolduan introduced the footage by saying it “appears to be surveillance video from the airport”. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority employee Mohamed Lamine Mbengue, 21, of Rockville, Maryland, was charged on Friday with computer trespass for “making an unauthorised copy of Airports Authority records”, authority spokeswoman Crystal Nosal said on Monday. Mbengue was booked into the Arlington County jail and released. On Sunday, authority employee Jonathan Savoy, 45, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was arrested and charged with computer trespass, Nosal said. He also was released pending trial.<br/>
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Data retrieved from an investigation into a collision last week between an American Airlines regional passenger jet and a U.S. Army helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington that killed 67 people will be released on Monday, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told Reuters. "We have much more granular data from Potomac Tracon that we're going to be able to release," Homendy said, referring to a Federal Aviation Administration terminal radar approach facility in Virginia. The Army Corps of Engineers on Monday began lifting the wreckage from the river, which officials have said could take a week or longer. Wreckage is being moved to a hangar at Washington Reagan National Airport. Much of the Potomac River remains restricted to authorized vessels. Two of the lesser-used runways at the airport remain closed. Homendy said the NTSB also plans to look at prior near-miss incidents between helicopters and airplanes around Washington Reagan and could expand the investigation "to other areas where's there's military helicopter and air traffic." She said the NTSB could complete interviews with air traffic control personnel on Monday and is conducting interviews with American Airlines and the U.S. Army on the operations side. "We're going to have to understand what are standard operating procedures" for a helicopter training mission, she said.<br/>
As divers and salvage crews begin pulling parts and pieces of an American Airlines regional commuter jet and an Army helicopter from the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport in Virginia after the crash last week, investigators will start looking for clues as to how the disaster, which claimed 67 lives, happened. One of the open questions is whether or not the military aircrew flying the UH-60 Black Hawk was wearing night-vision goggles at the time of the collision. For military pilots, night-vision goggles are used just as commonly as they are by troops on the ground. According to an Army report, the service began issuing night-vision devices to its aviators in 1985 and has continually acquired goggles that allow pilots and aircrews to see more clearly and with better depth perception at night ever since. Pete Hegseth, secretary of defense, said the Army crew members involved in Wednesday’s crash were performing a required annual night training and that they “did have night-vision goggles.” But Hegseth did not say if the goggles were in use at the time and National Transportation Safety Board investigators said they did not yet know. Story/explainer has more.<br/>
The impact area where a medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia was notably “expansive,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday after viewing the site with investigators and city officials. Duffy said he was struck by “how expansive it was. And the issues that fire and police were dealing with. Again, this is a very populated area.” The crash Friday evening killed all six people on the Learjet 55 air ambulance, including a girl who had been receiving medical treatment at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia hospital. A seventh person inside a vehicle was killed on the ground. Mayor Cherelle Parker said two more people who were hurt on the ground have been identified, bringing the total to 24. Four people remained hospitalized Monday, two in critical condition. Parker said footage of the crash has made her “think about what could have been, had a gas line been hit.”<br/>
The White House has tripped over its response on whether it was still safe to fly in American skies following two tragic plane crashes last week. Fox’s Senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy probed White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on air traffic controllers supposedly being manned by underqualified staff and DEI hires. “It’s not safe to fly commercially, is it?” he asked. Last week, the U.S. grappled with two devastating plane crashes, one in Washington D.C. that left 67 dead after a U.S. Army helicopter collided with a passenger jet, and a second in Philadelphia involving a medical jet carrying a young girl back to Mexico bursting into flames – which claimed the lives of seven. In D.C. Thursday, President Trump baselessly blamed diversity hiring practices in the Federal Aviation Administration for the devastating events that unfolded midair Wednesday night, falsely claiming that the organization previously sought out “people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities”. Since making the unfounded claims, Leavitt, Vice President JD Vance, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have sought to reiterate Trump’s wild DEI claims to the press. Speaking on Friday, Leavitt said: “He [Trump] believes that it is still indeed and Americans should feel safe traveling our skies.” But she quickly switched back and stated: “With that said, two things can be true at the same time, and we certainly have seen the deterioration of federal hiring standards in aviation administration and the president wants to increase those standards.”<br/>
Families boarded ferries and extra flights were laid on to help people leave Santorini on Monday as dozens of tremors shook the Greek island for a fourth day. Tremors have been recorded between the volcanic islands of Santorini and Amorgos in the Aegean Sea since Friday, forcing authorities to close schools in Santorini and nearby Ios, Amorgos and Anafi until Friday. Quakes, some with a magnitude above 4, rattled Santorini every few minutes on Monday as people were advised to stay out of indoor spaces and small ports. Disaster response units were deployed on the ground as a precaution. Experts have said the seismic activity on the island, some of whose most populated areas are perched on steep cliffs, will continue for weeks. Local officials said that permanent residents were not particularly worried as they have been used to quakes but some who were on the island, a popular holiday destination, for work were moving out. "For three days now there have been earthquakes all the time, every five minutes, it is continuous they don’t stop at all, the entire island is traumatized," said Tzanis Lignos, 35, who managed to find tickets for himself, his wife and his son to leave. Aegean Airlines said it would operate three additional flights to and from Santorini on Monday and Tuesday to facilitate the travel of residents and visitors upon a request by Greece's Civil Protection Ministry. "We estimate it (the activity) will continue for some days and there could be a lengthy seismic sequence," Efthymios Lekkas, a professor of tectonic geology and disaster management, and part of a team of experts assessing the situation on the ground, told Greek television.<br/>
London City Airport had to be evacuated on Monday (Tuesday NZT) after an “incident”. Hundreds of passengers had to leave the terminal and flights were put into a holding pattern above the UK capital. An airport spokesperson said the evacuation was the result of an incident in the landside area of the airport. “We apologise for any inconvenience caused, however the safety of our passengers and staff is our number one priority. The incident has now been resolved and passengers are re-entering the terminal.” A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told MyLondon that officers were called to the airport “following concerns around an unattended bag”. "The airport was temporarily evacuated and a cordon was put in place. The bag was determined to be nothing of concern and the cordon has since been lifted. "<br/>
A Moscow court has given Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, temporary control of all key services at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, court documents showed, an effective state seizure of the country's third-largest airport. Domodedovo handled 9.2m passengers between January and November last year. Its corporate structure is a set of assets all owned by Russian national Dmitry Kamenshchik or his companies. Russia has placed several assets, usually those owned by foreigners, under state management since the enactment of an April 2023 decree. Russia's Prosecutor General filed a lawsuit last month against dozens of entities connected to Domodedovo and interim measures imposed last week give Rosaviatsiya control of their operation. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 28. According to the court documents, prosecutors believe that the airport, an entity of strategic importance to Russia, is under foreign influence as a result of its current ownership structure. The Prosecutor General, Rosaviatsiya and Domodedovo Airport did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Kamenshchik could not immediately be reached. Moscow has previously put assets into state management and forced through sales to hand-picked buyers.<br/>
South Korea aims to rebuild its aviation safety system from scratch, the transport ministry said on Tuesday, launching a new committee to improve air travel in the country that suffered two major aviation incidents a month apart. "In order to restore trust in our country's aviation safety system, the government will make a determined effort to rebuild the aviation safety system from the ground up," Deputy Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Baek Won-kuk will tell the committee, the ministry statement said. The government must address aviation safety as a top priority, he added. In the deadliest air disaster ever on South Korean soil, a plane belonging to budget airline Jeju Air crashed at the country's Muan airport on Dec. 29, killing all but two of the 181 passengers and crew members on board. Duck remains were found in both engines of the plane, a preliminary investigation report said, indicating bird strikes occurred before the crash. Air accidents are nearly always caused by a combination of factors, according to experts. Last week, an Air Busan plane was engulfed in flames at Busan's international airport as the low-cost carrier's jet prepared to depart, with all on board evacuated safely. The fire was first detected by a flight attendant in an overhead luggage bin in the rear of the plane, Air Busan has said. Investigations into the causes of both incidents are ongoing. The 10-week committee will include private sector experts and will look at issues including maintenance and aircraft utilisation rates at budget airlines, and airport construction and operation.<br/>
South Korean fire authorities recently announced six additional deployments of uncrewed remotely controlled fire trucks, which played a crucial part in extinguishing the Jan. 28 fire that broke out onboard an Air Busan aircraft in Busan. The additional fire trucks, put into use nationwide last year, will be dispatched in Daegu, Gwangju and Gangwon, North Chungcheong, South Chungcheong and North Jeolla provinces, according to the National Fire Agency. A total of 32 such trucks will be deployed across the country. The new truck allows officials to extinguish flames without deploying firefighters at hazardous areas, as it is equipped with a 20-meter crane with nozzles that allow it to put out fires within a 10-meter radius. The crane is able to plow through steel plates 4 millimeters thick or concrete blocks 160 millimeters thick, which proved crucial in the recent fire at Gimhae International Airport. The truck penetrated the fuselage of the blazing plane and poured in water to allow officials to put out the fire as quickly as possible. All passengers and crew survived the ordeal, with only seven suffering minor injuries. Two of the truck are deployed for operation in Busan, the second most populated city in the country.<br/>
The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) on Monday unveiled plans to tackle high airfares during peak travel seasons, particularly around the Songkran holiday. CAAT director Suttipong Kongpool said the initiative follows a directive by Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit to control airfares for the benefit of travellers. CAAT has outlined several measures to keep airfares reasonable. A price ceiling has been set based on flight distance, capping low-cost airline fares at 9.40 baht per kilometre and full-service airline fares at 13 baht per kilometre. This regulation applies only to direct bookings with airlines. The pricing structure is based on International Civil Aviation Organization standards. Approximately 25-33% of the collected fares go towards fuel, 20-31% for flight operations and 8-16% for maintenance. The aim of setting a price cap is to prevent airlines from excessively inflating ticket prices beyond reasonable profit margins<br/>
The United States should pause tariffs on Canada as it did on Mexico, the head of the largest North American aerospace union told Reuters on Monday, as industry executives weighed the impact of fresh duties on plane parts and jets. U.S. President Donald Trump announced executive orders that would impose tariffs of 25% on Canadian imports and 10% on goods from China starting on Tuesday. Trump had planned a 25% tariff on Mexico, but that was delayed after a Monday call with Mexico's president. "I would think they would do the same thing for Canada," said Brian Bryant, international president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), which represents workers at planemakers such as Boeing. "We just have so many jobs in the U.S. that export aerospace goods to Canada for their programs up there and we wouldn't want to see those jobs jeopardized by that." Bryant said Trump should meet with unions such as the IAM to hear workers' views. Some IAM members voted for Trump and probably did not envision "that their jobs are going to be impacted by the potential of what he might do with tariffs," he said. Tariffs would add complexity and higher costs to planemaking, with a tight supply chain limiting firms' ability to find alternative parts. Canada exported C$12.8b ($8.78b) of aerospace and defense-related products to the U.S. and imported C$10.2b worth, according to 2023 government data. Bombardier shares tumbled as much as 13% before paring losses to around 2%. The Canadian business jet maker said in a statement it will use the coming days to analyze multiple scenarios to avert fallout.<br/>