Emergency landing at JFK after Turkish Airlines pilot dies midflight
Kevin Carter/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A Turkish Airlines flight diverted to New York on Wednesday morning after one of its pilots died.
Flight 204 was traveling from Seattle to Istanbul when it was diverted to John F. Kennedy International Airport for an emergency landing at approximately 6 a.m. after “one of the pilots suffered a medical emergency,” according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Capt. İlçehin Pehlivan “lost consciousness” during the flight, and after initial medical intervention proved ineffective, the co-pilot was rerouted to JFK, where the Airbus A350 safely landed, the airline said in a statement.
Turkish Airlines also confirmed that Pehlivan died before the plane touched ground. Since it was a long-haul international flight, two other pilots were on board at the time.
Upon landing, the aircraft was met by emergency personnel, according to airport authorities.
Pehlivan, 59, had been working for Turkish Airlines since 2009. His last routine health check was performed on March 8, 2024, and no health issues were detected that would have prevented him from carrying out his duties as a pilot, according to the airline.
Yahya Üstün, senior vice president of media relations at Turkish Airlines, expressed his condolences in a post on X, saying, “We deeply feel the loss of our captain and extend our sincerest condolences to his bereaved family, colleagues, and all his loved ones.”
The airline said it is making arrangements to rebook the affected passengers on new flights from New York.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the diverted aircraft as an Airbus A320. It was an Airbus A350.
(NEW YORK) — Daniel Penny “used far too much force for far too long” and though he may be an “honorable veteran” and “nice young man,” he was reckless with Jordan Neely’s life because “he didn’t recognize his humanity,” Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran said in her opening statement Friday during the trial over the fatal chokehold.
“He was aware of the risk his actions would kill Mr. Neely and did it anyway,” Yoran said.
Penny is charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide in the May 2023 death of Neely, a homeless man who was acting erratically on a New York City subway car.
“Jordan Neely took his last breaths on the dirty floor of an uptown F train,” Yoran told a rapt jury.
Neely entered a moderately crowded subway car at the Second Avenue stop and began making threats about hurting people, scaring many of the passengers, Yoran said.
She pointed at Penny as she told the jury, “This man, took it upon himself to take down Jordan Neely. To neutralize him.”
Thirty seconds later, the train arrived at the next station and all the passengers left the train car, except two men who were helping Penny restrain Neely. The prosecutor said Penny hung onto Neely for 51 seconds after Neely’s body went limp.
“By doing so, he pushed Mr. Neely to the point of no return,” Yoran said. “He left Mr. Neely lying on the floor unconscious and didn’t look back.”
Penny has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in Neely’s death. His attorneys have said Neely was “insanely threatening,” but Yoran said Penny’s actions were unnecessarily reckless because he continued the chokehold for 5 minutes and 53 seconds after the subway car was empty of passengers. “A grasp that never changed,” Yoran called it.
“The defendant did not intend to kill him. His initial intent was even laudable,” Yoran said. “But under the law, deadly physical force such as a chokehold is permitted only when it is absolutely necessary and for only as long as is absolutely necessary. And here, the defendant went way too far.”
The prosecutor told jurors they would see video of the chokehold.
“You will see Mr. Neely’s life being sucked out before your very eyes,” Yoran said, appearing to upset one of the jurors who grimaced and briefly shut his eyes.
She also said jurors would see body camera video of Penny’s initial encounter with police, four and a half minutes after letting go of Neely.
When the officer asked Penny what happened, the prosecutor said Penny replied that Neely had been threatening. “Then he said, ‘I just put him out,'” Yoran told the jury.
The defense is set to give its opening statement on Friday following a break.
Protest audible from courtroom
The sounds of a sidewalk protest over the death of Neely were audible in the 13th-floor courtroom ahead of opening statements. Protesters were heard calling Penny a “subway strangler.”
Judge Max Wiley said he would instruct jurors to ignore “noise outside the courthouse.”
Penny, in a slate blue suit, strode confidently into the courtroom and took his seat at the defense table ahead of opening statements.
The jury of seven women and five men, four of whom are people of color, will be asked to do something prosecutors concede is difficult: convict someone of an unintentional crime.
To convict, prosecutors must prove Penny’s use of lethal force was unjustifiable and that Penny acted recklessly and consciously disregarded the substantial risk of putting Neely in the chokehold for so long. Prosecutors do not have to prove Penny intended to kill Neely, which defense attorneys have said Neely did not intend to do.
Wiley denied Penny’s bid to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter case in January.
The case has fueled political narratives about urban crime and captivated a city in which the subway is indispensable.
Differing accounts of the incident
While there is no doubt that Penny’s actions led to Neely’s death on May 1, 2023, witness accounts differ regarding the events that led up to Penny applying the fatal chokehold, according to various sources.
Many witnesses reported that Neely, 30, who was homeless at the time of his death and was known to perform as a Michael Jackson impersonator, had expressed that he was homeless, hungry and thirsty, according to prosecutors. Most of the witnesses also recounted that Neely indicated a willingness to go to jail or prison.
Some witnesses also reported that Neely threatened to hurt people on the train, while others did not report hearing those threats, according to police sources.
Additionally, some witnesses told police that Neely was yelling and harassing passengers on the train. However, others have said that while Neely had exhibited erratic behavior, he had not been threatening anyone in particular and had not become violent, according to police sources who spoke with ABC News following the incident.
According to prosecution court filings, some passengers on the train that day said they didn’t feel threatened. One said they weren’t “really worried about what was going on,” while another called it “like another day typically in New York. That’s what I’m used to seeing. I wasn’t really looking at it if I was going to be threatened or anything to that nature, but it was a little different because, you know, you don’t really hear anybody saying anything like that.”
Other passengers, however, described being fearful, according to court filings. One said they “have encountered many things, but nothing that put fear into me like that,” while another said Neely was making “half-lunge movements” and coming within a “half a foot of people.”
Neely had a documented history of mental health issues and arrests, including alleged instances of disorderly conduct, fare evasion and assault, according to police sources.
Less than 30 seconds after Penny allegedly put Neely into a chokehold, the train arrived at the Broadway-Lafayette Station, according to court records.
“Passengers who had felt fearful on account of being trapped on the train were now free to exit the train. The defendant continued holding Mr. Neely around the neck,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass in a court filing objecting to Penny’s dismissal request.
According to prosecutors, footage of the interaction, which began about two minutes after the incident started, captures Penny holding Neely in the chokehold for about four minutes and 57 seconds on a relatively empty train, with a couple of passengers nearby.
Prosecutors said that about three minutes and 10 seconds into the video, Neely ceases all purposeful movement.
“After that moment, Mr. Neely’s movements are best described as ‘twitching and the kind of agonal movement that you see around death,'” prosecutors said.
The case is expected to feature testimony of passengers who were aboard the subway at the time, as well as a roughly six-minute video of the chokehold.
Jury to hear eyewitness statements
Before opening statements on Friday, Wiley granted a defense request to allow some of the statements that eyewitnesses to the chokehold made to police that were captured on body-worn cameras.
One witness, a Ms. Rosario, was captured on body-worn camera 15 minutes after the incident aboard the F train.
“I can see most of that statement coming in as an excited utterance,” Wiley said.
The judge declined to allow a part of her statement in which an officer is heard asking whether she thought Neely was on drugs.
A Mr. Latimer is captured a minute later and Wiley said his statement is “well within the immediacy of the event” and could be admitted.
“This person displays emotion, excitement as he’s describing what happened. It’s narrative,” Wiley said.
Most of the passengers who were aboard the train and who witnessed the event are expected to testify at trial.
Jury will see evidence that Neely did not have a weapon
The judge also previously ruled that the jury will see evidence that shows Neely was unarmed.
Penny’s defense had sought to preclude evidence or testimony about the lack of a weapon recovered from a search of Neely’s body but in a written opinion issued Thursday, Wiley said such evidence and testimony is relevant to the case.
“The fact that Mr. Neely was unarmed provides additional relevant information to aid the jury, namely, it clarifies what could have been perceived by someone in the defendant’s position,” Wiley wrote. “The possibility that a person in the defendant’s situation could have been reasonable in mistakenly believing that Mr. Neely had been armed is appropriate for consideration by the jury and well within their capability.”
The defense worried that including evidence that Neely was unarmed could bolster sympathy for the victim but Wiley said it would help the jury decide whether Penny’s actions were justified.
Penny’s lawyers and Neely’s family speak ahead of the trial
Members of Neely’s family were seated with the spectators for opening statements Friday.
“I loved Jordan. And I want justice for Jordan Neely. I want it today. I want justice for everybody and I want justice for Jordan Neely,” his uncle, Christopher Neely, said before entering court.
Prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office are expected to concede that Neely may have seemed scary to some subway riders, but will argue Penny continued the chokehold well past the point where Neely stopped moving and posed any kind of threat.
Penny’s attorneys have said that they were “saddened at the loss of human life,” but that Penny saw “a genuine threat and took action to protect the lives of others,” arguing that Neely was “insanely threatening” to passengers aboard the subway train.
While Penny’s defense will argue that he had no intent to kill Neely, prosecutor Steinglass has noted that the second-degree manslaughter charge only requires prosecutors to prove Penny acted recklessly, not intentionally.
“We are confident that a jury, aware of Danny’s actions in putting aside his own safety to protect the lives of his fellow riders, will deliver a just verdict,” Penny’s lawyers, Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, said earlier this year, after Penny’s request to dismiss the charge was denied.
“This case is simple. Someone got on a train and was screaming so someone else choked them to death,” Neely family attorney Donte Mills said in a past statement to ABC News. “Those two things do not and will never balance. There is no justification.”
“Jordan had the right to take up his own space. He was allowed to be on that train and even to scream. He did not touch anyone. He was not a visitor on that train, in New York, or in this country,” Mills added.
Moses Stewart and Diane Hawkins grieve over the slaying of their son Yusuf Hawkins; Nicole Bengiveno/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
(BROOKLYN, N.Y.) — When Yusuf Hawkins, a Black 16-year-old, was shot and killed in Brooklyn in 1989 as he went to purchase a car, the crime set off months of angry protests.
Now, the man convicted in Hawkins’ murder, who has been behind bars for nearly 35 years, will get a chance Thursday to prove his innocence with what his defense attorney says is new evidence.
Joseph Fama, who was 18 at the time of the murder, was part of a white mob that chased down Hawkins and three other unarmed Black youths in August 1989 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, according to court documents.
Fama, who is white, was convicted in May 1990 of second-degree murder, first-degree riot, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, first-degree unlawful imprisonment, menacing and discrimination. All counts were ordered to run concurrently, giving Fama 25 years to life in prison, according to court documents.
“Unfortunately, terribly, Yusuf Hawkins, innocent, innocent man, was killed — let’s just start with that — because he’s Black,” Justin Bonus, Fama’s attorney, told ABC News in a phone interview last week. “My client was not involved with this whole group of kids sitting there waiting for Black guys to come.”
The murder sparked protests against racial violence around New York City at a time when tensions were high. Months earlier, the Central Park Five, a group of Black and Hispanic teenagers, were wrongfully convicted of rape and assault of a white female jogger.
Five witnesses testified that they saw Fama shoot Hawkins, and four more witnesses placed Fama at the scene the night that the teenager was shot three times, according to court documents. Two jailhouse informants testified that Fama admitted to them that he shot Hawkins because he was Black, according to court documents.
“First of all, jailhouse informants, are we going to go by that?” Bonus said to ABC News.
The judge in Fama’s original trial did not allow the father of one of the informants to testify that he believed his son was lying about his claim that Fama confessed that he killed Hawkins. The courts made that decision because the defense failed to lay a foundation for the admission of the evidence during cross-examination of the informant, according to court documents.
According to a motion by Fama’s defense, two of the witnesses, who previously said that they saw Fama kill Hawkins, recanted their testimonies and claimed that they were coerced by investigators to pin the shooting on the defendant.
During the original trial, the court denied the defense’s request to call Frankie Tighe, one of the witnesses who recanted his testimony, to the stand because defense attorneys had already rested their case four days before their request, according to court documents.
Keith Mondello, one of the alleged leaders of the mob that chased Hawkins and who was convicted, provided new evidence that also claimed Fama was not the killer, according to court documents.
Five additional witnesses originally claimed that, after the shooting, Tighe ran around the corner to their location and they heard him say, “Joe Fama just shot a Black kid,” according to court documents.
The defense says they have new evidence that one of those witnesses later recanted their testimony and stated that detectives spoke to him many times and pressured him to accuse Fama, according to the defense’s motion.
On Aug. 23, 1989, at about 9:00 p.m. Hawkins and three of his peers took a subway train from their Brooklyn neighborhood in East New York to Bensonhurst to look at a used car for sale, according to court documents.
The four peers became lost in Bensonhurst and, as they searched for the address of where the used car would be, they came across a group of 20 to 40 white individuals who, coincidentally, were expecting Black and Hispanic men to attend a birthday party in the neighborhood that night, according to court documents.
The party was hosted by an 18-year-old white woman who the men in the neighborhood believed invited Black and Hispanic men to the birthday celebration, according to Bonus. The men gathered in the vicinity of her home, allegedly voiced racist threats and armed themselves with bats, golf clubs and handguns as they allegedly waited for the men of color to come to the party, according to court documents.
The group of men chased Hawkins and his peers when they saw them, according to court documents. The confrontation ended with Hawkins shot. He died a short time later. Fama was sentenced for 25 years to life in prison on June 11, 1990.
The defense claims to have twelve new affidavits from witnesses that allege that Fama did not shoot Hawkins. Some of those witnesses say police pressured them to accuse Fama.
The defense motion focuses on one investigator, former Detective Louis Scarcella, claiming he was “significantly involved with the investigation and procuring witnesses.”
A complaint against Scarcella alleges that nearly 20 homicide convictions associated with the former detective have been vacated and in at least nine of those convictions, Scarcella coerced false confessions or fabricated written confessions from innocent individuals, according to court records.
Joel Cohen, Scarcella’s attorney, told ABC News over the phone that some judges found that Scarcella was involved in improper tactics which led to the convictions of several individuals, but the court only found innocence in one of the overturned cases.
Scarcella didn’t file a response to any of the complaints, according to his attorney.
“Joseph Fama’s motion to vacate his conviction for the racially motivated murder of Yusef Hawkings 32 years ago is flatly contradicted by the overwhelming evidence of his guilt,” Cohen told ABC News in part through a statement. “His lawyer’s claims that the that the “…”murder investigation was led by Detective Louis Scarcella ,” and that Scarcella was “all over the investigation” are reckless and provably false and based in part by the lawyer’s “surmise.”
The DA’s office told ABC News that Scarcella only played a minor role in the investigation and was one of more than 65 investigators working on the case. The defense believes Scarcella was “significantly involved in” the investigation, according to court documents.
The NYPD did not reply to ABC News’ request for a statement.
The DA’s office claims witnesses testified that they saw Fama receive a gun from the individual who Bonus alleges was the actual shooter just before Hawkins’ death.
In Tighe’s recanted statement, he claimed that Fama used a silver handgun in the shooting, but Claude Stanford, one of Hawkins’ peers who was with him the night he was shot, said that the shooter used a black gun and was about 6 feet tall, according to the defense’s motion. Fama was about 5 feet, 8 inches tall at the time, according to court documents.
Fama has already tried twice to appeal his conviction and was denied by the court both times, according to legal documents. This is his third attempt to vacate his conviction.
Fama’s court conference hearing is set for Nov. 21, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
Most of the cases have been in Colorado, which has 26 reported cases, and Montana, which has 13 reported cases, according to the CDC.
Cases have also been reported in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to the CDC, which further notes that illnesses have occurred between Sept. 27 and Oct. 10 of this year.
Of the 61 people about whom the CDC has information, 22 have been hospitalized, and two developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious, potentially fatal complication of E. coli infection that can cause kidney failure, according to the CDC.
One death has been reported in Colorado in connection with the outbreak. The person was a resident of Mesa County in the western part of the state, according to the Mesa County department of health.
“The true number of sick people in this outbreak is likely much higher than the number reported, and the outbreak may not be limited to the states with known illnesses,” the CDC said in its update. “This is because many people recover without medical care and are not tested for E. coli. In addition, recent illnesses may not yet be reported as it usually takes 3 to 4 weeks to determine if a sick person is part of an outbreak.”
McDonald’s says either fresh, slivered onions or beef patties used for the Quarter Pounder may be behind the outbreak.
Following the initial announcement of the outbreak on Tuesday, the fast-food company announced it had proactively removed two ingredients from stores across two affected regions. The company’s leadership team said that a majority of other menu items are not impacted, according to the CDC investigation.
McDonald’s confirmed in a statement to ABC News that Taylor Farms is the supplier of the sliced onions the fast-food chain removed, but it is unclear whether Taylor Farms provides its products directly to McDonald’s or through an intermediary.
Taylor Farms issued a voluntary recall on Wednesday for its raw onions.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said that raw slivered onions and the beef patties are the focus of their investigation as potential E. coli sources, but also indicated that preliminary data suggests the onions are “a likely source of contamination.”
ABC News’ Kelly McCarthy and Taylor Dunn contributed to this report.
