Japan Airlines flight hits tail of parked Delta plane at Seattle SeaTac Airport
Photo by YUICHI YAMAZAKI/AFP via Getty Images
(SEATTLE, Wash.) — The right wing of a taxiing Japan Airlines flight hit the tail of a parked Delta plane at Seattle’s SeaTac Airport on Wednesday, according to the airport and the Federal Aviation Administration.
No one was injured but passengers on both flights were forced to deplane, SeaTac Airport said.
Delta Flight 1921 was set to fly to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with 142 customers on board.
Delta said in a statement, “While in sequence for deicing, the tail of a Delta 737 aircraft reportedly made contact with a wing tip of another airline’s aircraft. There are no reports of injuries for crew or customers on the flight, and we apologize for the experience and delay in travels.”
The FAA said it will investigate.
“The aircraft were in an area that is not under air traffic control,” the FAA noted.
The airport said the incident had a “minimal impact” on its operations.
(LOS ANGELES) — The multiple wildfires raging in California are being described by eyewitnesses as “apocalyptic.” While the cost in human suffering is immeasurable, it may take weeks or longer for the true economic toll to be realized.
AccuWeather estimated $52 billion to $57 billion in damage as of Wednesday afternoon, but state officials warned that the number is expected to rise as the unprecedented fires put thousands more homes at risk.
The five wildfires tearing through the County of Los Angeles hit many California homeowners who were already struggling to find a company willing to insure their properties. At least 10 major insurers have either left or reduced coverage in California in the past four years. During that time, the number of homeowners signing up for the state’s insurer of last resort has doubled, officials said.
In the past two years, insurers including Allstate, American National, The Hartford and State Farm stopped issuing new fire policies for California homeowners. In some instances, residents said, the insurers would not renew existing policies because of the ongoing risk of damage from wildfires.
“The scenes from the area are heartbreaking, and our thoughts are on the individuals and communities impacted, as well as those that remain under threat,” State Farm said in a statement to ABC News. “We want our customers to know that, when it is safe to do so, they can and should file a claim. Agents can also help and, if needed, give customers more time to pay their premium. Our teams are standing by to assist.”
Allstate stopped issuing new homeowner policies in the state in 2022 and said last year that it would reverse its decision if it was allowed to account for the costs of reinsurance when setting rates.
The Hartford stopped writing new homeowners policies in the state on Feb. 1, 2024. American National stopped offering policies in the state on Feb. 29, 2024. Those companies did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the fires or on coverage going forward.
Just days before the first wildfire broke out Tuesday in LA’s affluent Pacific Palisades neighborhood, the California Department of Insurance unveiled new regulations that would soon require insurers to increase home coverage in areas prone to wildfires. The policy would not be retroactive and would only apply to new policies going forward.
Part of a home insurance reform package, the regulations will also allow insurers to charge homeowners higher premiums to protect themselves from catastrophic wildfire claims, the documents said. It will be the first time in the state’s history that insurers can include the cost of reinsurance in their premiums, though it is a common practice in other states.
Critics of the rule say it could hike insurance premiums by 40% and doesn’t require new policies to be written at a fast enough pace.
The new rules are set to take effect at the end of January following a 30-day review period; but for many Californians, that regulation will come too late.
One example is the Levin family.
The fast-moving wildfires threatened Lynn Levin Guzman’s childhood home in Eaton, California. The 62-year-old emergency room nurse said, in a post on TikTok, that she snuck back to an evacuation zone to attempt to protect the home by spraying it with water from a hose because her parents’ fire insurance was cancelled.
“They’re 90 years old. They’ve lived in this house for 75 years, and they’ve had the same insurance,” Guzman told ABC7 Eyewitness news, “and the insurance people decided to cancel their fire insurance.”
“So, thank you California insurance companies for supporting residents who pay taxes and love California,” she said.
“And they wonder why people are leaving California,” she added.
An apparent lack of viable insurance options has a growing number of California homeowners flocking to the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort. Meant to be a stopgap rather than a permanent replacement, it does not offer comprehensive policies. According to state officials, the number of policies under the FAIR Plan has more than doubled from 2020 to 2024 to 452,000.
President-elect Donald Trump called out the insurance industry on Truth Social on Wednesday, posting, “The fires in Los Angeles may go down, in dollar amount, as the worst in the History of our Country. In many circles, they’re doubting whether insurance companies will even have enough money to pay for this catastrophe.”
President Joe Biden also on Wednesday approved a major disaster declaration for California, making federal funds available for those who’ve lost property. That assistance includes low-cost loans to cover some uninsured property losses, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The FAIR Plan predicts that it will be able to pay out.
“We are aware of misinformation being posted online regarding the FAIR Plan’s ability to pay claims,” FAIR Plan spokesperson Hilary McLean said in a statement.
“It is too early to provide loss estimates as claims are just beginning to be submitted and processed,” McLean wrote, noting that the plan is prepared for this kind of a disaster and has payment mechanisms, including reinsurance, to cover claims.
State officials say they are considering passing a temporary year-long moratorium on non-renewals in areas recently burned.
Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement, “Insurance companies are pledging their commitment to California, and we will hold them accountable for the promises they have made.”
Sam Costanza/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A man accused of killing three people in an apparent unprovoked stabbing spree in Manhattan made his first appearance in court on Tuesday.
Ramon Rivera, 51, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, according to the New York Police Department. He confessed to the killings during questioning, according to police sources.
The judge on Tuesday granted the prosecution’s request for remand. Rivera is set to return to court on Nov. 22.
The attacks unfolded within three hours on Monday morning.
The first victim, 36-year-old Angel Lata Landi, was fatally stabbed in the abdomen at 8:22 a.m. in an unprovoked attack by the construction site where he was working on West 19th Street, the NYPD said.
About two hours later, 67-year-old Chang Wang was fatally stabbed multiple times on East 30th Street, police said.
The third victim, 36-year-old Wilma Augustin, was attacked around 10:55 a.m. at 42nd Street and First Avenue. She had multiple stab wounds and was taken to a hospital where she later died, officials said.
The suspect — who was staying at the Bellevue Men’s Shelter on East 30th Street — was apprehended around East 46th Street and First Avenue, police said.
He appeared to pick the victims at random, police said.
“He just walked up to them and began to attack them,” Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny said at a news conference.
Two bloody kitchen knives were recovered, police said.
Rivera has eight prior arrests in New York City, according to law enforcement, and is believed to have severe mental health challenges, Mayor Eric Adams said. Rivera’s case renewed frustration with the city’s inability to treat people in mental distress and hold people with a history of low-level criminal activity.
“There’s a real question as to why he was on the street,” Adams said.
(LOS ANGELES) — When fast-moving fires plagued neighboring communities in Los Angeles County years ago, a school in Pacific Palisades served as an evacuation center. After this week’s disastrous fires on the Westside, that will no longer be an option.
On Tuesday, flames tore through Palisades Charter High School, which reports show was previously used to offer shelter to people escaping Southern California wildfires like the 1977 Topanga fire and the 2018 Woolsey fire.
The school itself and the neighborhood as a whole have long sat within the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone of Los Angeles, prompting longtime fears of what could happen in a crisis like the Palisades fire.
“There are only two main routes of ingress and egress to and from the Palisades as a whole” to the Pacific Coast Highway, the Pacific Palisades Community Council wrote in a 2020 letter to city officials in Los Angeles.
The letter said that some of the neighborhood’s streets were “substandard,” adding, “We have experienced serious problems with congestion during wildfire evacuations (most recently during the serious Palisades & Getty fires in fall 2019).”
The Pacific Palisades Community Council had already been planning to talk during their regularly scheduled meeting Thursday about finding time to schedule a fire safety fair in the neighborhood and how community input could be submitted to the upcoming Los Angeles Community Wildfire Protection Plan from MySafe:LA, a nonprofit group.
The wildfire protection plan in question was not expected to be finished until later this year. In a phone interview with ABC News Wednesday evening, Cpt. Chris Nevil of MySafe:LA described the plan as an evolving “living document” and said that because so many people are involved in its creation, it has taken longer than expected to complete.
An executive summary of the plan that was previously released mentioned Pacific Palisades by name, noting that “strong winds, notably the Santa Ana winds, can swiftly spread flames, posing threats to nearby communities like Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Woodland Hills.”
This week’s fires in Los Angeles County also come amid continued concerns over homeowners insurance in coastal and mountainous communities throughout California.
Between 2020 and 2022, over half a million fire insurance policies were not renewed in Los Angeles County, according to an analysis of California Department of Insurance records by the ABC Owned Television Stations data journalism team.
In Pacific Palisades, 732 fire insurance policies were not renewed in 2022 alone, accounting for 11 percent of such policies in the neighborhood.
A 2021 report by nonprofit Climate Resolve found that after the Woolsey Fire, “we learned that homes were chronically underinsured, having been assessed at the time of purchase—perhaps decades ago—and not realistically reappraised since,” adding that “insurance is crucially important and little understood by homeowners.”
J.P. Morgan Insurance issued an alert Wednesday that estimated preliminarily that “insured losses from this fire could approach $10 billion.”
ABC Owned Television Stations’ Ryann Jones and Jill Castellano contributed to this report.
