DC plane crash: New details emerge from NTSB investigation
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(WASHINGTON) — There’s no indication the U.S. Army Black Hawk crew could tell there was an impending collision before its devastating crash with an American Airlines plane in Washington, D.C., National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jennifer Homendy said Friday as the agency continues to investigate the cause of the accident.
The helicopter crew may have had bad information on the altitude from their altimeter, as the pilots had differing altitudes in the seconds before the crash, the NTSB said.
One helicopter pilot thought they were at 300 feet and the other thought they were at 200 feet. The NTSB is not prepared to say exactly how high the helicopter was at impact, the NTSB said.
“We are looking at the possibility of there may be bad data,” Homendy said.
The transmission from the tower that instructed the helicopter to go behind the plane may not have been heard by the crew because the pilot may have keyed her radio at the same second and stepped on the transmission from ATC, the NTSB added.
The Black Hawk crew was likely wearing night vision goggles throughout the flight, Homendy said.
The Black Hawk was conducting an annual training flight and night vision goggle check ride for one of the pilots at the time of the crash, Homendy said. This is a practical exam that a pilot must pass to be qualified to perform specific duties, she said.
On the evening of Jan. 29, the American Airlines regional jet was preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when it collided with the Black Hawk, sending both aircraft plunging into the Potomac River.
No one survived.
Sixty-four people were on board the plane, which departed from Wichita, Kansas. Three soldiers were on the helicopter.
At the news conference, Homendy commended Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for taking immediate action to restrict helicopter traffic around Reagan airport in the wake of the crash. It’s “too early to say” whether that restriction should be permanent, she said.
Homendy also stressed the safety of U.S. air travel.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks with ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott during an ICE raid in Virginia on March 4, 2025. (ABC News)
(RICHMOND, VA) — Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is bringing “consequences” during raids in Virginia on Tuesday.
“There is consequences,” said Noem, who was present during the pre-operation debrief. The raids were assisted by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott covered the raids at the scene. The second operation saw agents detain a man who officials said had been convicted of sexual battery. The man, they said, had been deported twice and re-entered the country illegally.
Two minors and an uncle were also present in the raided residence, officials said. Agents said the uncle is undocumented and told him to turn himself into immigration authorities in two days.
Asked what would happen to the two minors, Noem told ABC News, “We don’t know what other family members they have, that’s why he has two days to go locate them and make sure these kids are with someone in their family that they believe will keep them safe and set a better example for them.”
Pushed on the likelihood of the family being separated, Noem said there are “consequences,” adding, “And we are giving him time to leave these children with someone else.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The Venezuelan migrants removed by the Trump administration to El Salvador last week deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang, a federal judge ruled Monday morning.
In a ruling denying the Trump Administration’s request to dissolve his order blocking the deportations, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote that Trump’s “unprecedented use” of the Alien Enemies Act does not remove the government’s responsibility to ensure the men removed could contest their designation as alleged gang members.
Trump last week invoked the Alien Enemies Act — a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little-to-no due process — by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the U.S.
“The Court need not resolve the thorny question of whether the judiciary has the authority to assess this claim in the first place. That is because Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on another equally fundamental theory: before they may be deported, they are entitled to individualized hearings to determine whether the Act applies to them at all,” Judge Boasberg wrote in his ruling Monday, adding the men were likely to win their case.
Judge Boasberg acknowledged that the use of the Alien Enemies Act “implicates a host of complicated legal issues” but sidestepped the larger question of whether the law was properly invoked, instead focusing on the due process deserved by the men. He added that the men have been irreparably harmed by their removal to an El Salvadoran prison where they face “torture, beatings, and even death.”
“Federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such. Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge,” he wrote.
Judge Boasberg also cast doubt on the Trump administration’s allegation that the decision risks national security, noting that the men would still be detained within the United States if they had not been deported. During a court hearing on Friday, DOJ lawyers acknowledged that the men deported on the Alien Enemies Act have the right to a habeas hearing — where they could contest their alleged membership in Tren de Aragua — but declined to vow that each man would be given a hearing before they were removed from the country.
Boasberg’s ruling comes as a federal appeals court prepares to hear arguments Monday over the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act for last week’s deportations.
If the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Boasberg’s blocking of the president’s use of the centuries-old wartime law, the Trump administration could exercise the authority to deport any suspected migrant gang member with little-to-no due process.
Lawyers representing the Venezuelan men targeted under Trump’s proclamation have argued that the president exceeded his authority by using the Alien Enemies Act against a gang — rather than a state actor — outside of wartime.
“The President is trying to write Congress’s limits out of the act,” the plaintiffs argued, adding that U.S. presidents have used the law three other times during or immediately preceding a war.
But the Trump administration has argued that the judiciary does not have the right to review the use of the Alien Enemies Act, alleging the deportations fall under the president’s Article II powers to remove alleged terrorists and execute the country’s foreign policy.
“The President’s action is lawful and based upon a long history of using war authorities against organizations connected to foreign states and national security judgments, which are not subject to judicial second guessing,” DOJ lawyers have argued in court filings.
Last week, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked the president’s use of the law to deport more than 200 alleged gang members with no due process, calling the removals “awfully frightening” and “incredibly troublesome.” An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement subsequently acknowledged in a sworn declaration that “many” of the noncitizens deported last weekend under the Alien Enemies Act did not have criminal records in the United States.
The Trump administration is asking the appeals court to overturn Boasberg’s temporary restraining order blocking the deportations, while Judge Boasberg continues to examine whether the Trump administration deliberately defied his order by sending the men to an El Salvadoran prison rather than returning them to the United States as he directed.
“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order and who ordered this and what’s the consequence,” Boasberg said on Friday.
With deportations under the Alien Enemies Act temporarily blocked, the Trump administration has vowed to use other authorities to deport noncitizens. Over the weekend, Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez announced that the country had reached an agreement to resume repatriation flights of Venezuelan migrants from the U.S.
“We’re going to keep targeting the worst of the worst, which we’ve been doing since day one, and deporting from the United States through the various laws on the books,” border czar Tom Homan told ABC’s Jon Karl on Sunday.
The three-person panel hearing today’s arguments includes two judges nominated by Republican presidents, including one nominated by Trump himself. The D.C. Circuit is the last stop before the Trump administration could take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Trump nominated three judges during his last term, solidifying the court’s conservative majority.
(CALIFORNIA) — A cousin of the Menendez brothers said she’s “thrilled” that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is addressing the brothers’ request for clemency and ordering the parole board to investigate further.
“I certainly gasped in relief,” cousin Anamaria Baralt, one of at least 20 relatives in support of the brothers’ release, told ABC News at a virtual news conference Thursday. “This is huge.”
Lyle and Erik Menendez — who are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 murders of their parents — have “cautious optimism” they’ll be released, Baralt said.
“They are the first life without parole prisoners on this path,” added another cousin, Tamara Goodell. “So when we look at any advancements … it’s definitely with hope, but also understanding that there are no promises.”
“There’s no guarantee of outcome here,” Newsom said Wednesday on his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.” “My office conducts dozens and dozens of these clemency reviews on a consistent basis. But this process simply provides more transparency, which I think is important in this case, as well as provides us more due diligence before I make any determination for clemency.”
Baralt called Newsom’s decision a “positive step forward” and said she’s confident the parole board will determine Lyle and Erik Menendez are not a risk to public safety.
“We have seen their rehabilitation over the last three decades,” Baralt said.
She said the parole board’s investigation will find: the brothers’ repeated and sincere remorse; their work to improve prison culture and run several programs to help inmates reenter society; and how they’ve spent most of their lives in prison but still built meaningful lives helping others. The board will also consider their age at the time of the crime and their lack of criminal history outside of “making a horrific decision” as a direct result of the abuse they endured, Baralt said.
“We understand that this is not without professional risk for him,” Baralt said of Newsom.
Lyle and Erik Menendez filed the petition in 2023 for a review of two new pieces of evidence not presented at trial: a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin, Andy Cano, eight months before the murders detailing his alleged abuse from his father Jose Menendez; and allegations from a former boy band member, Roy Rossello, who revealed in 2023 that he was raped by Jose Menendez.
Hochman argued the letter failed the credibility test, saying if it existed, the defense would have used it at the brothers’ trials in the 1990s.
Hochman said Rossello’s allegation failed the admissibility test, because the brothers didn’t know about his claims until recent years, so it couldn’t have influenced their state of mind during the crime and “play a role in self-defense or premeditated murder.”
After Hochman’s announcement, Erik Menendez said to the family, “We need you strong,” Goodell recalled. “They both really mirrored our frustration, but they also said, ‘Let it go. We need to focus on moving forward.’ And so that is our focus.”
Baralt stands by the new evidence.
The letter to Cano, while received in December 1988, was not discovered until recent years, according to the brothers’ attorney.
Baralt stressed that Cano was 14 or 15 at the time Erik Menendez sent him that letter.
“It’s only natural for a teenage boy to not realize he is sitting on critical evidence. Andy wasn’t a lawyer. He wasn’t even an adult,” she said. “To pose the question now, decades later, after he passed, of why wasn’t the letter submitted back then? It’s like asking a teenager who got in a fender bender why didn’t you call the police to file a report — because a teenager doesn’t know any better. He didn’t realize how vital that letter would be to the case.”
And as for Rossello’s admission in 2023, Baralt stressed that it’s common for abuse victims to not disclose for years.
“Roy coming out to share his story in his own time is new evidence” that should be considered admissible, she said.
Baralt said Hochman’s decision “felt extra hurtful, because it was only a few weeks ago that dozens of [relatives] sat in his office and described the horror of being in this victim family, with 35 years of being retraumatized.”
“We have become victims in this process,” she said. “We have been laughed at, ridiculed and forced to relive the pain over and over again.”
Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted in 1996 of the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez. The defense claimed the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father, while prosecutors alleged they killed for money.
In October, then-LA County District Attorney George Gascón announced he supported resentencing for the brothers. Gascón recommended their sentences of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and said they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately with the new sentence.
The DA’s office said its resentencing recommendations take into account many factors, including rehabilitation in prison and abuse or trauma that contributed to the crime. Gascón praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and help other inmates.
Weeks after Gascón’s announcement, he lost his race for reelection to Hochman.
Hochman, who came into office on Dec. 3, has yet to announce if he is in support of or against resentencing for the brothers. He’s expected to decide in the coming weeks.
A hearing regarding the resentencing case is set for March 20 and 21.
