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(WASHINGTON) — An American Airlines regional jet collided with a military helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia on Wednesday night before both aircraft plummeted into the Potomac River.
Sixty-four people were on the plane, which departed from Wichita, Kansas. Three Army soldiers were aboard the helicopter, which was on a training flight at the time, officials said. No survivors are expected.
The incident recalls a similar tragedy that took place 43 years ago.
On Jan. 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in downtown Washington, D.C., and plunged into the icy waters of the Potomac.
The Boeing 737-200 that was en route to Tampa departed from Runway 36 at Washington National Airport at 4 p.m., despite the dangerous blizzard conditions, according to various media reports at the time.
The plane, struggling to gain altitude, only rose a few hundred feet in the air after takeoff before suddenly dropping toward the bridge, shearing off the tops of cars and crashing into the river.
In total, 78 passengers, crew members and motorists died in the crash, according to officials. Five people were rescued from the frigid waters of the Potomac.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined the cause of the crash to be pilot error, along with improper deicing procedures. The Federal Aviation Administration said in a report that the flight “experienced difficulty in climbing immediately following rotation and subsequently stalled.”
“Loss of control was determined to be due to reduction in aerodynamic lift resulting from ice and snow that had accumulated on the airplane’s wings during prolonged ground operation at National Airport,” the FAA said.
Flight attendant Kelly Duncan, the only crew member on board who survived, told ABC News in 1982 that the crash seemed unreal.
“My next feeling was that I was just floating through white and I felt like I was dying and I just thought, ‘I’m not really ready to die,'” she said at the time.
(NEW YORK) — Steve Bannon must appear in court next week to explain why he switched lawyers so close to trial, a judge in New York ordered.
Bannon, once a senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, is scheduled to stand trial Feb. 25 on charges he defrauded donors of “We Build the Wall,” an online fundraising campaign to support a wall along the U.S. southern border.
Bannon hired Arthur Aidala after his prior attorneys moved to withdraw from the case and Judge April Newbauer said she wanted to “make an inquiry of the defendant” before she decided whether to allow it.
Aidala asked the judge to delay the trial’s start to give him time to read up on the case, insisting Bannon was “not looking to intentionally delay anything.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office saw it differently, arguing Bannon was “trying to make a substitution of counsel for the purpose of delay.”
Bannon’s money laundering and conspiracy case was originally scheduled for trial in 2023 but has been repeatedly delayed.
When trial does begin, prosecutors said they would ask for an anonymous jury.
A six-count indictment in 2022 charged Bannon and “We Build the Wall” itself with two counts of money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of five to 15 years in prison. There are additional felony counts of conspiracy and scheme to defraud along with one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to defraud.
(ATLANTA, Ga.) — The Georgia Court of Appeals has disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from her prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump and his co-defendants in their election interference case.
“After carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office,” the court ruled.
The indictment against Trump and his co-defendants still stands, the court said.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last year to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
Defendants Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis and Scott Hall subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Thursday’s ruling leaves the question of who takes over the case — and whether it continues — to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia. That decision may be delayed if Trump or Willis continues their appeal to the state’s highest court, Georgia’s Supreme Court.
The case has been on pause after Trump and his co-defendants launched an effort to have Willis disqualified from the case over her relationship with fellow prosecutor Nathan Wade. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee declined to disqualify Willis, leading Trump to appeal that decision.
The appeals court ruled to disqualify Willis and her entire office from the case because “no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings,” the ruling said.
“The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring,” the order said, reversing Judge McAfee’s original decision.
Wade, who had been the lead prosecutor in the case, resigned as special prosecutor in March after McAfee issued his ruling that either Willis or Wade must step aside from the case due to a “significant appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship between the DA and the prosecutor.
While the appeals court disqualified Willis and her office, it did not find enough evidence to justify “the extreme sanction” of tossing the entire indictment against Trump and his co-defendants, as Trump had sought in his appeal.
“While this is the rare case in which DA Willis and her office must be disqualified due to a significant appearance of impropriety, we cannot conclude that the record also supports the imposition of the extreme sanction of dismissal of the indictment under the appropriate standard,” the ruling said.
Judge Clay Land — one of the three judges on the appeals panel — dissented from the decision, arguing that reversing the trial court “violates well-established precedent, threatens the discretion given to trial courts, and blurs the distinction between our respective courts.”
Land argued that the appearance of impropriety — rather than a true conflict of interest — is not enough to reverse Judge McAfee’s decision not to disqualify Willis.
“For at least the last 43 years, our appellate courts have held that an appearance of impropriety, without an actual conflict of interest or actual impropriety, provides no basis for the reversal of a trial court’s denial of a motion to disqualify,” he wrote.
In his dissent, Land emphasized that the trial court found that Willis did not have a conflict of interest and rejected the allegations of impropriety stemming from her relationship with Wade, including the allegation that she received a financial benefit from his hiring.
“It was certainly critical of her choices and chastised her for making them. I take no issue with that criticism, and if the trial court had chosen, in its discretion, to disqualify her and her office, this would be a different case,” he wrote. “But that is not the remedy the trial court chose, and I believe our case law prohibits us from rejecting that remedy just because we don’t like it or just because we might have gone further had we been the trial judge.”
(NEW YORK) — The search for an unidentified gunman who fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the investigation into a possible motive, remain ongoing Friday.
Thompson, 50, was shot Wednesday morning outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel, where the insurance group’s investors conference was being held. The masked gunman appeared to be lying in wait outside the Hilton hotel before shooting Thompson at close range, police said.
Police said they are interviewing Thompson’s colleagues and family about any potential specific threats while they investigate a motive into the shooting.
Evidence collected from the scene of the shocking shooting include shell casings with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them, according to police sources.
ABC News contributor Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent, said he believes the shooter is “trying to send a message” through the words.
“It strikes me that it has to do with insurance companies using those terms in some of their processes of turning down claims,” Garrett told ABC News Live’s Stephanie Ramos when asked about the words. “It’s a common complaint by people of having claims denied, and so I think this shooter is trying to send a message that someone — either himself or a loved one or someone close to him — has been harmed by this insurance company.”
“There wouldn’t be, logically, any other reason,” he added.
The words on the shell casings also echo the title of a 2010 book “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.” Police are aware of the similarity, and are investigating whether one possible motive is anger at the insurance industry, sources said.
The book was written by legal scholar and insurance expert Jay Feinman, a professor emeritus at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey.
It explores abuses of auto and homeowners insurance to “avoid paying justified claims,” according to its summary.
“Today the name of the game is delay, deny, defend: to improve their profits, insurance companies delay payment of justified claims, deny payment altogether, and defend their actions by forcing claimants to enter litigation,” the book description states.
This strategy is not restricted to auto and homeowners insurance, the introduction states. “All insurance companies have an incentive to chisel their customers in order to increase profits,” it says.
ABC News has reached out to Feinman for comment.
In a response to a post on X that mentioned his book and the words on the shell casings, Feinman said he has “no comment” to media inquiries.
Police are working to identify the gunman in the shooting and his whereabouts.
After the shooting, the perpetrator fled on foot into an alley, where a phone was recovered, then fled on a bike, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
Other evidence recovered from the scene includes a water bottle and candy wrapper, police sources said.
Police have also collected video of the suspected gunman all over the city, including in the subway, in cabs and a McDonald’s, since he arrived in New York City on Nov. 24 on a Greyhound bus, sources told ABC News.
In each place, he paid with cash and he made sure to keep his mask on, which indicates to detectives he knew he was coming to the city to commit the crime, sources said.
Police have released several photos of the shooting suspect while asking for the public’s help in identifying him. They include images of him unmasked taken from a surveillance camera at an Upper West Side hostel, where it appears the suspect shared a room with two other men, according to police sources.
UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer in the world, said they are “working closely” with the NYPD in the wake of the shooting.
“So many patients, consumers, health care professionals, associations, government officials and other caring people have taken time out of their day to reach out. We are thankful, even as we grieve,” UnitedHealth Group said in a statement on Thursday. “Our priorities are, first and foremost, supporting Brian’s family; ensuring the safety of our employees; and working with law enforcement to bring the perpetrator to justice.”
“We, at UnitedHealth Group, will continue to be there for those who depend upon us for their health care,” the statement continued. “We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn the loss of their husband, father, brother and friend.”
