Crews continuing to search for debris from the deadly collision of a passenger jet and Army helicopter near Washington used a plane outfitted with lasers to scan the bottom of the Potomac River early Saturday, the National Transportation Safety Board said. Large pieces of the jetliner and helicopter along with the remains of all 67 victims already were recovered earlier this week and crews now will spend the coming days looking for smaller debris before finishing the work in about a week. A plane operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and equipped with laser scanning technology flew at low altitudes over the crash site. The lasers are used to penetrate the river’s surface and map the riverbed. “All major pieces” of the two aircraft have been found, and investigators will examine them for any markings that could reveal the angle of the collision, according to an NTSB statement released Saturday afternoon. The NTSB said information collected will be part of its ongoing investigation into the Jan. 29 collision between the Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight over Washington, D.C. There were no survivors.<br/>President Donald Trump on Thursday blamed the collision on what he called an “obsolete” computer system used by U.S. air traffic controllers and vowed to replace it. NTSB officials told members of Congress that the helicopter’s advanced surveillance technology, which transmits aircraft location and other data to air traffic control and other aircraft, was turned off, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Thursday. Investigators are also looking into the altitude of the plane and helicopter, including whether the chopper was above its 200-foot (61-meter) flight ceiling. Investigators need to be able to examine the wreckage of the Black Hawk to get more precise information.<br/>
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The Army was one of 28 government agencies authorized to fly helicopters near Ronald Reagan National Airport before its Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger jet last week, killing 67. That constant helicopter traffic near such a busy airport is one of many aspects now under review by investigators. As the wreckage of both aircraft are recovered, authorities are also looking at why the helicopter may have been flying above a 200-foot flight restriction. More details are becoming clear, including that there was no rule on how far inland or over the water the helicopter could be. Here’s what investigators have found, including a new interview with a key Army aviation official: The 12th Aviation Battalion based at Davison Army Air Field at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, has a classified mission to ensure continuity of government by getting certain officials to safety in case of an attack. It is also tasked with ferrying high-ranking government and military officials to bases throughout the region. The battalion is stretched thin, both for aircraft and personnel. It also flies older Black Hawks. Of the roughly 100 older UH-60L Black Hawk variants left in the Army’s fleet of 2,000 Black Hawks, eight are assigned to the battalion. After the crash, there are seven. In addition, the unit has six newer UH-60M models known as “gold tops.” The crew was likely wearing night vision goggles at the time of the crash, National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday. Homendy said investigators listening to the recovered cockpit voice recorder do not hear the crew say they are flying “unaided” — which they would have indicated if they did not have goggles on. Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, the director of Army aviation and a former UH-60 Black Hawk pilot, said crews train to fly at night with or without the goggles. Whether to wear them is the call of the pilot in command, but if they are worn, all three crew members will have them on. Story has more.<br/>
Even as the wreckage of a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan that crashed on Thursday, killing all 10 on board, drifts on a Bering Sea ice floe, authorities said they had recovered and identified the bodies of all the victims on Saturday. Time was of the essence as the ice floe, about 34 miles (54 km) out to sea near Nome, Alaska, was made of slushy ice and the weather was predicted to turn foul on Sunday, whipping up snow and 45 mph winds, officials said. "All ten individuals aboard the Bering Air plane have been officially brought home," the Nome Volunteer Fire Department said in a Facebook post on Saturday night. Recovery of the victims from the small commuter aircraft was made by a joint effort of the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Air Force and other agencies. Meanwhile, a crew of nine investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived in Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday to find out why it crashed. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said the Cessna carrying nine passengers and one pilot was lost from radar contact about 3:30 p.m. local time on Thursday over the Bering Sea as it headed from Unalakleet, Alaska, to an airfield in Nome, about 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle. The Coast Guard found the wreckage late on Friday on an ice floe drifting about 5 miles a day at sea, officials said. "The priority is victim recovery. Then we will recover the wreckage," Homendy said at a press conference earlier on Saturday.<br/>
U.S. air traffic controllers will be offered the opportunity to stay past their mandatory retirement age of 56, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News on Thursday in the wake of the Washington plane crash. "I can offer them the chance to stay longer past the mandatory retirement age of 56, pay them more...make the system safer, alleviate the pressure on the controllers." Duffy said the offer would be made in the coming days. The collision over the Potomac River in Washington between an army helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet killed 67 people last week. It was the deadliest U.S. air disaster in more than 20 years.<br/>
Newly unsealed documents give one of the most detailed views yet of the evidence gathered on the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, including how prosecutors allege he and others interacted with the hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The summaries of evidence released Thursday include Mohammed’s own statements over the years, phone records and other documents alleging coordination between Mohammed and the hijackers, videos included in al-Qaida’s planning for the attacks and prosecutors’ summaries of government simulations of the flights of the four airliners that day. But few other details were given. Also to be presented are the photos and death certificates of 2,976 people killed that day at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field, where the fourth airliner commandeered by the al-Qaida hijackers smashed into the ground after a revolt by passengers. The newly revealed framework of military prosecutors’ potential case against Mohammed, who prosecutors say conceived of and executed much of al-Qaida’s attack, is contained in a plea agreement that the Defense Department is battling in court to roll back. Mohammed and two co-defendants agreed in the plea deal with military prosecutors to plead guilty in the attack in return for life sentences. The Associated Press, The New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post, Fox News, NBC and Univision are suing to get the plea bargains unsealed. The summaries of the prosecution evidence were released Thursday in a partially redacted version of Mohammed’s agreement. The evidence summaries point to the possibility of additional revelations about the attacks yet to come.<br/>
A small plane crashed into a road in São Paulo, Brazil, around 7:20 a.m. local time Friday, killing both people on board and injuring several people on the ground, according to the city’s fire department. Six people sustained minor injuries and were not in serious condition. One of them was a motorcyclist who was passing by. The other five were passengers on a bus that was struck by a part of the plane, according to Capt. Ronaldo Melo, a spokesman for São Paulo’s fire department. Firefighters arrived on the scene just before 7:30 a.m., finding the plane and the bus on fire, Captain Melo said. “The fire was very aggressive,” he added. The bus passengers had all escaped the vehicle before the fire started, he said. Videos on social media showed the remnants of the plane in flames, as well as a large, black plume of smoke rising into the air. It’s unclear what caused the incident, but the plane appeared to have crashed shortly after taking off. It struck the Avenida Marques de São Vicente, a major road in the Barra Funda neighborhood, about four miles from the Campo de Marte Airport, where the plane took off. The plane was on its way to Porto Alegre, nearly 700 miles south of São Paulo. About three hours after the crash, the fire department had left the scene, Captain Melo said.<br/>
Denmark’s regional Sonderborg airport is to be equipped with a digital control tower, the first in the country to adopt such technology. The airport will implement the tower system to provide air traffic services remotely. Its operator has selected the ‘r-TWR’ system produced by Saab Digital Air Traffic Solutions. “This marks a historic step for our airport and the region,” says the airport’s chief, Jakup Sverri Kass. “We are modernising in a way that keeps our airport efficient and connected.” The airport operator says the digital tower will improve operational efficiency and avoid the need for a new physical tower, while ensuring that local air traffic controller jobs are preserved. Saab says the development will be “future-proofing” the airport, which offers connections through Air Alsie, an operator of ATR turboprops and business jets. Its digital tower will include a voice communication system and automatic flight information service.<br/>
Russia’s federal air transport regulator is advising operators to ensure pilots receive additional training in non-precision approaches, given the risks of possible loss of satellite-based navigation capabilities due to interference. Rosaviatsia is also advising regular pilot training for coping aircraft control system failures – including loss of hydraulics – and establishing “worst-case” training scenarios to develop pilot skills. The recommendations are contained in a bulletin in which Rosaviatsia highlights an “increase”, during 2024 and early 2025, in the number of reports from crews and operators concerning failures or deviations affecting cockpit navigation aids. These failures “may be caused by unintentional radio interference” from sources including electronic countermeasures being used to protect Russian facilities from “illegal use” of unmanned aerial vehicles, it states. Rosaviatsia says a decision by the state commission on radio frequencies, dated April last year, permits the use of such countermeasures within 30km of an airport, as long as organisational and technical measures are developed to “minimise” harmful interference to aviation communications. The regulator advises that characteristic signs of interference, or spoofing of signals, include mismatched position data, time shifts, and abnormal discrepancies between airspeed and groundspeed.<br/>
Heavy snow and strong winds disrupted flights at Jeju International Airport, the gateway to the southern island on Friday, leading to massive flight cancellations. As of 5:20 p.m., 138 domestic departure flights, 144 domestic arrival flights and 19 international flights set to land or take off at the Jeju airport had been canceled, airport officials said. In addition, 23 domestic arrivals, 32 domestic departures and three international flights were delayed, they said, noting about 20,000 travelers were stranded on the island due to the flight disruptions. In particular, Korean Air canceled all flights set to depart from Jeju from 10 a.m. With strong wind and wind shear advisories issued for Jeju airport, occasional snowstorms are causing disruptions to airport operations, airport officials said. The flight cancellations were also affected by heavy snowfall at other regional airports, they explained.<br/>
A complaint from the Chinese Embassy in Indonesia over extortion cases at the main Soekarno-Hatta International Airport has led to the removal of 30 immigration officials from airport duty, and raised anew a debate over shakedowns involving tourists. The Chinese mission in a Jan 21 letter, which was posted on X by anti-corruption activists and widely circulated since, conveyed a formal complaint regarding at least 44 instances of extortion against more than 60 Chinese nationals at Indonesia’s busiest airport, which welcomed 54.8m passengers in 2024. The Straits Times has reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta for confirmation of the letter. The Immigration and Corrections Ministry on Feb 2 announced the removal of the 30 immigration officers, and minister Agus Andrianto said the number of airport auto-gates for arrivals is being increased to reduce encounters between international passengers and immigration officials. He did not give details of the plan, or the methods of extortion. Visitors from China must each pay 500,000 rupiah (S$42) for a visa on arrival. As a preventive measure, the government has also put up new signs in Chinese, Arabic and English at the airport’s immigration checkpoints, warning against tipping, he added. “I will ensure that if they are not dedicated to performing their duties and embarrass Indonesia, I will investigate and take action against them in compliance with prevailing regulations,” Mr Agus told The Straits Times, referring to errant officers. <br/>
Avolon and BOC Aviation, two of the world's largest aircraft lessors, have fully settled lawsuits in the Irish courts against insurers over jets stranded in Russia following Western sanctions in 2022, they said on Friday. Lessors are suing dozens of insurers around the world over losses of at least $8b after more than 400 planes were stranded in Russia following the sanctions over Moscow's war in Ukraine that forced the termination of their leases. Smaller lessor Nordic Aviation Capital has also terminated proceedings against the insurers, a source involved in the case said. A spokesperson for SMBC Aviation Capital also said it had reached settlements with Swiss Re and Scor Europe, two of the 18 insurers it is suing as part of a group of six lessors' Irish High Court action that continued on Friday. Avolon and BOC said they had discontinued their proceedings in Ireland after reaching commercial resolutions with their insurers. Avolon, BOC and SMBC, three of the world's five largest aircraft lessors, declined to disclose details of the settlements for commercial and confidentiality reasons. Spokespeople for CDB Aviation, Nordic Aviation Capital and Hermes Aircraft - the three other lessors pursuing claims in Ireland - did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Singapore-based BOC said it would continue to pursue a separate claim against insurers in London's High Court, where another trial by a group of lessors began last year.<br/>
Airbus said on Friday it is delaying plans to develop a hydrogen-powered commercial aircraft by the middle of next decade, citing slower than expected developments in technology. The delay marks a setback to the European aerospace group's ambitions to pioneer the adoption of hydrogen fuel as aviation strives to curtail emissions, a goal strongly championed by CEO Guillaume Faury since it was first introduced five years ago. Airbus did not give a new timeline for the project, but the Force Ouvriere union said that staff had been told earlier this week that the technology was running five to 10 years behind the pace needed to support the original 2035 target. The delay was first reported by French news agency AFP. "Hydrogen has the potential to be a transformative energy source for aviation," Airbus said in an emailed statement. "However, we recognise that developing a hydrogen ecosystem - including infrastructure, production, distribution and regulatory frameworks - is a huge challenge requiring global collaboration and investment." Airbus officials have acknowledged the plan to produce a hydrogen-powered plane - most likely a turboprop - for 100 people was only ever expected to make a marginal contribution to the sector's goal to reach net zero emissions by 2050, but argued it would pave the way for greater adoption in future.<br/>
The spate of recent aviation disasters and close calls have people worried about the safety of flying. The midair collision that killed 67 near Washington, the fiery plane crash in Philadelphia and now a missing plane in Alaska are only the most high-profile disasters. There was also a Japan Airlines plane that clipped a parked Delta plane while it was taxiing at the Seattle airport earlier this week and a United Airlines plane caught fire during takeoff at the Houston airport Sunday after an engine problem sparked a fire on the wing. That’s not even to mention the security concerns that arose after stowaways were found dead inside the wheel wells of two planes and aboard two other flights. And don’t forget about the time that a passenger opened an emergency exit door on a plane while it was taxiing for takeoff in Boston. So of course people are wondering whether their flight is safe? Fatal crashes attract extraordinary attention partly because they are rare. The track record of U.S. airlines is remarkably safe, as demonstrated by the long stretch between fatal crashes. But deadly crashes have happened more recently elsewhere around the world, including one in South Korea that killed all 179 people aboard in December. There were also two fatal crashes involving Boeing’s troubled 737 Max jetliner in 2018 and 2019. And last January, a door plug blew off a 737 Max while it was in flight, raising more questions about the plane. And federal officials have been raising concerns about an overtaxed and understaffed air traffic control system for years, especially after a series of close calls between planes at U.S. airports. Among the reasons they have cited for staffing shortages are uncompetitive pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirements.<br/>