LaGuardia Airport crash: 1 of the 2 killed pilots identified

(NEW YORK) — Two people were in the LaGuardia Airport air traffic control tower cab when an Air Canada jet collided with a Port Authority airport vehicle on a runway at the New York City airport on Sunday night, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The on-the-ground crash killed both pilots, left dozens injured and prompted LaGuardia to shut down for more than 12 hours. Antoine Forest has been identified by his family as one of the two pilots killed.

The collision happened shortly after Air Canada Flight 8646, which was carrying four crew members and 72 passengers, touched down from Montreal around 11:45 p.m., according to Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia. The plane, which was operated by Jazz Aviation, struck a rescue-and-firefighting vehicle responding to another aircraft, officials said.

Preliminary data shows the plane was traveling between 93 and 105 mph when it impacted the fire truck, FlightRadar24 told ABC News.

At least 43 people — from the plane and the fire truck — were taken to hospitals, officials said.

As the NTSB investigates the crash, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said there were two people in the air traffic control tower cab at the time of collision: the local controller and the controller in charge.

Two controllers is “the standard operating procedure for LaGuardia for the midnight shift,” Homendy at a news conference on Tuesday.

She said the NTSB has been concerned about fatigue from the midnight shift in past investigations, but stressed that there is no evidence of fatigue so far in this case.

LaGuardia has a runway safety system allowing air traffic controllers to track surface movement of planes and vehicles, but that system “did not alert,” Homendy said.

The analysis found that the system “did not generate an alert due to the close proximity of vehicles merging and unmerging near the runway, resulting in the inability to create a track of high confidence,” Homendy said.

There is no indication yet if the pilots saw the fire truck on the runway, Homendy said, noting that the NTSB is still analyzing the cockpit voice recorder.

Homendy said the NTSB is still working to determine what happened at the air traffic controllers’ shift change around 10:30 p.m.

“We know that that controller was still on duty for several minutes afterwards” the crash, she said, when usually they’d be relieved, so she said the NTSB is investigating if anyone was available to relieve them.

Homendy also stressed that the NTSB “rarely, if ever, investigate[s] a major accident where it was one failure” — usually “many, many things” went wrong, she said.

“Our aviation system is incredibly safe because there are multiple, multiple layers of defense built in to prevent an accident,” she explained.

One passenger on the flight, Joe, said that as the plane was landing, he noticed some emergency vehicles on the tarmac.

“Right before the impacts, we felt something, maybe like an emergency brake that was pulled, or some kind of hard stop, before we hit the truck,” Joe, who did not want to use his last name, told ABC News Live. “But prior to that, there was nothing out of the ordinary that I had noticed.”

“Because I was seated in the emergency aisle, somebody in the plane had shouted, ‘Emergency exits open,'” Joe said. “So at that time, I pulled the lever down, attached the door, put it to the side of the plane, and a few of us had exited through the emergency exit onto the wing of the plane. And FDNY and Port Authority Police directed us to slide down the wing. … It was very low to the ground and easy to get off.”

Joe, who was on the flight with his fiancé, said Monday evening that they were “pretty shaken up, still kind of in shock.”

“And just heartbroken for, obviously, the pilots, and all those that are injured,” Joe said.

He said he believes the pilots “saved many lives on that flight — and my heart’s just broken for them.”

LaGuardia shut down after the crash and slowly resumed flights at 2 p.m. Monday. The runway where the collision occurred will remain closed until 7 a.m. Friday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

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(WASHINGTON) — Department of Justice officials say they have taken down “several thousand documents and media” from its website containing files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that “may have inadvertently included victim-identifying information due to various factors, including technical or human error,” according to a letter filed on the dockets of two federal judges Monday.

The government’s update comes after attorneys for Epstein’s victims asked the judges late Sunday to urgently order that the DOJ site be taken down because of redaction failures exposing the names or personal information, they said, of “nearly 100 individual survivors whose lives have been turned upside down by the DOJ’s latest release.”

The DOJ’s letter — submitted by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — also notes that the Justice Department has “further expedited its processes” for responding to Epstein victims’ concerns and for removing documents to be reexamined for additional redactions.

The letter gives no indication that the government intends to pull the site offline, but it says they are continuing to engage with victims and their counsel to identify and remove materials, and are “making further enhancements” to best address victims’ concerns while also complying with the disclosure requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act that mandates the release of the files.

“As of the writing of this letter, all documents requested by victims or counsel to be removed by yesterday evening have been removed for further redaction, and the Department is continuing to process any new requests and to run its own searches to identify any other documents that may require further redaction,” Clayton wrote.  He noted that the DOJ had also removed a “substantial number” of documents identified independently by the department.

Clayton wrote that the DOJ has “iteratively revised its protocols” and has “teams of personnel” monitoring requests by victims and their lawyers.  

The Justice Department is not “relying solely” on the victims to identify specific documents, Clayton said. A team worked through the weekend, according to the letter,  running “supplemental searches to identify missed redactions.”

“The first 24 hours of engagement on these issues, as well as the Department’s own internal review of its processes, following the release of documents on Friday led to significant enhancements to and streamlining of the Department’s processes for addressing victim concerns,” Clayton wrote.

Three million pages from the DOJ’s files on Epstein were being released to the public, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday. Blanche said in total there were 6 million pages of Epstein documents in the DOJ’s files, but that nearly 3 million pages were being withheld for various reasons including the presence of child sexual abuse material and the obligation to protect victims’ rights.

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(OAHU, Hawaii) — Closing arguments are underway in the trial of a Hawaii doctor accused of trying to kill his wife on a hiking trail.

Dr. Gerhardt Konig, 47, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder. Prosecutors allege the anesthesiologist attacked his wife, Arielle Konig, near a cliff while on the Pali Puka Trail on Oahu on March 24, 2025, by pushing her near the edge and then beating her multiple times with a rock.

The defense, meanwhile, has alleged that Arielle Konig attacked her husband first, and that he hit her with the rock in self-defense.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations Tuesday afternoon local time. If they are unable to find Gerhardt Konig guilty of second-degree attempted murder, they will consider whether he is guilty of attempted manslaughter based upon extreme mental or emotional disturbance, first-degree attempted assault, second-degree assault or third-degree assault.

Both Gerhardt Konig and his wife, who have two young sons together, took the stand during the three-week trial in Honolulu, presenting widely differing accounts of what happened on the hike.

Arielle Konig testified that the two had traveled to Oahu from their home in Maui to celebrate her birthday. She said they had been working on repairing their marriage after her husband found what she characterized as “flirty” WhatsApp messages between her and a colleague in December 2024 in what she said was an “emotional affair.”

Arielle Konig testified that during the hike, her husband pushed her toward the edge of the cliff. As they wrestled on the ground with him on top, pinning her down, he produced a syringe and vial, she said.

Arielle Konig further testified that her husband proceeded to beat her with a rock as many as 10 times, and that she believed he was trying to knock her unconscious in order to drag her over the edge of the cliff. 

Arielle Konig testified that she fought back by biting her husband’s forearm and pleaded with him, saying, “You can’t do it,” and that “our kids will be orphans — you’ll go to jail and I’ll be dead.” 

“He’s saying, ‘You’re done. We’re done with you. We don’t need you anymore. You’re done. You’re done,'” she told the court.

Arielle Konig testified that she yelled, “He’s trying to kill me,” and screamed for help, and two female hikers happened upon them. One of the hikers told a 911 operator, “Someone’s currently being attacked on the top of Pali Puka. There’s a man trying to kill her,” according to audio of the call played in court.

Prosecutors showed photos of Arielle Konig’s bloodied face following the incident. She testified that she crawled away from her husband and was helped down the rest of the trail by the two women. She said she was treated at a hospital for “severe complex scalp lacerations” and showed the court scarring on her scalp. 

Gerhardt Konig testified in his own defense over two days, maintaining that he never intended to hurt his wife and acted in self-defense when he struck her with the rock.

He told the court that his wife pushed him near the edge after they got into an argument about her affair, and that she hit him with a rock first while they struggled on the ground. He admitted to hitting her with the rock while on top of her, saying he struck her twice, though he denied having any syringes or trying to pull her toward the cliff’s edge.

Gerhardt Konig testified that he felt suicidal after the incident.

“I just felt hopeless at that point in terms of everything,” he said. “I felt horrified about what I did to her, that I had caused this to her, that I had resorted to violence against my wife, the person who I love the most in the world. And I just kind of felt hopeless in terms of our relationship, too.”

Shortly after the incident, Gerhardt Konig testified, he made a FaceTime call to his 20-year-old son from his prior marriage, Emile Konig, to say goodbye.

His son testified about the FaceTime call during the trial. Asked by the prosecutor to recount what his father said during the call, Emile Konig responded, “That he would not be making it back to Maui and to take good care of the younger kids, and that Ari, my stepmom, had been cheating on him, and that he tried to kill her.” 

“During that call, the next plan that he said was to jump off the cliff,” Emile Konig testified, adding that his father said he was “at the end of his rope.” 

Gerhardt Konig pushed back against his son’s testimony and denied making any confession. He told the court that what he said during the call was, “She said I tried to kill her.”

Gerhardt Konig was arrested following an hourslong manhunt, prosecutors said.

Arielle Konig filed for divorce in May 2025, seeking full custody of the couple’s two children.  

Gerhardt Konig, who worked as an anesthesiologist on Maui, has been in jail since his arrest. Following his arrest, Maui Health said his medical staff privileges at Maui Memorial Medical Center have been suspended pending investigation. 

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