Object that hit United flight’s windshield may have been weather balloon, company says
@JonNYC/ X
(NEW YORK) — A United Airlines flight diverted to Salt Lake City last week after an object struck the plane’s windshield at 36,000 feet, causing it to crack and injuring the pilot, according to the airline and officials.
Amid the mystery of what could have hit the plane’s windshield, on Monday night, WindBorne Systems, a long-duration smart weather balloon company, released a statement saying the object that hit and cracked United flight’s windshield may have been a weather balloon from the company.
The company said it is working with FAA and the NTSB on the investigation.
“We are working closely with the FAA on this matter. We immediately rolled out changes to minimize time spent between 30,000 and 40,000 feet. These changes are already live with immediate effect. Additionally, we are further accelerating our plans to use live flight data to autonomously avoid planes, even if the planes are at a non-standard altitude. We are also actively working on new hardware designs to further reduce impact force magnitude and concentration,” WindBorne said in a statement.
The windshield is being transported to the National Transportation Safety Board’s laboratory as the investigation continues.
Data from flight tracking website Flight Radar24 shows the plane was 36,000 feet in the air when an object hit the windshield. The flight then descended to a lower altitude, following standard protocol, before making an emergency landing at Utah’s Salt Lake City International Airport.
“This is an extraordinary situation in terms of the glass being able to create any damage at all to the people in the cockpit, and what it might have hit at 36,000 feet. That’s really the great puzzle,” said ABC News aviation analyst John Nance.
Aircraft windshields are designed with multiple layers to be able to sustain damage caused by things like a bird strike, weather or even debris, but experts say it’s rare for it to be a bird strike that high in the sky.
“You’re talking about a bird at that altitude. It’s very, very rare to say the least, you’re talking about maybe a drone, a weather balloon, anything of that nature that has enough mass to be able to cause this kind of shattering,” said Nance.
United Airlines said the Boeing 737-MAX 8 with 134 passengers landed safely in Utah “to address damage to its multilayered windshield.” Officials said the pilot was treated for minor injuries.
Heather Ramsey, a college student and a passenger onboard, said she first noticed something was weird about 50 minutes into the flight, even before any announcements, when she overheard one of the flight attendants sharply raising her voice and telling the other to stop the service and get to the back of the cabin.
Shortly after, Ramsey said the pilot made an announcement of the flight diverting.
“The aircraft has collided with an object and a window in the cockpit has shattered, so we need to make an emergency landing in Salt Lake City,” Ramsey told ABC News, recalling the pilot’s message.
The images of the cracked windshield were first shared on social media by aviation account JonNYC.
The airline said passengers were accommodated on another aircraft to Los Angeles later that day and United is working with its team to return the plane to service.
Trump International Golf Club on September 15, 2024 after apparent assassination attempt. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Closing arguments are scheduled Tuesday in the trial of Ryan Routh, who stands accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump on Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course last year.
Routh, who is representing himself despite lacking any legal education or experience, was cut off multiple times by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon while presenting his defense case Monday.
Cannon ended the day with a warning for Ryan Routh ahead of closings.
“Any argument you make … must be reasonably tied to the admitted evidence. Do you understand?” the judge asked Routh, saying that any deviation will “cause a problem.”
“Yes, your honor,” Routh said.
“This cannot be your opportunity to provide pseudo testimony outside the context of the sworn testimony,” Cannon said.
Each side has been allotted one hour and 45 minutes for their closing arguments.
Deliberations will begin immediately after the closings end, said Cannon, who instructed the jury about the law on Monday afternoon.
“I want to remind you that if the defendant spoke in those parts of the trial, he was acting as a lawyer in the case, and his words are not evidence. The only evidence in this case comes from witnesses who testify under oath on the witness stand and from exhibits that are admitted,” Cannon told the jury.
Prosecutors allege that Routh put together a methodical plan — including purchasing a military-grade weapon, researching Trump’s movements, and utilizing a dozen burner phones — to kill Trump based on political grievances.
Hiding in the bushes of Trump’s Palm Beach golf course and armed with a rifle, Routh allegedly came within a few hundred yards of the then-presidential nominee before a Secret Service agent spotted his rifle poking out of the tree line.
Routh allegedly fled the scene but was later arrested by a local sheriff’s office on a nearby interstate.
To convict on the top count of attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, jurors might believe beyond a reasonable doubt that Routh intended to kill Trump and took a “substantial step” to carry out his plan, even if he did not follow through or changed his mind.
“Each of you must decide the case for yourself, but only after fully considering the evidence with the other jurors,” she told the jury. “Remember that, in a very real way, you are judges — judges of the facts. Your only interest is to seek the truth from the evidence in the case.”
Routh faces five criminal charges, including attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, using a firearm in furtherance of a crime, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm as a felon, and using a gun with a defaced serial number.
The U.S. Department of Justice is seen on September 26, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Samuel Corum/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has indicted a former Navy petty officer and four others for allegedly leading an online extortion group that authorities say later helped spawn the global extremist network known as “764,” which the FBI now describes as “modern day terrorism” for its sadistic and violent tormenting of teens online.
An indictment unsealed Tuesday alleges that the earlier group, calling themselves “Greggy’s Cult,” engaged in a criminal enterprise that pushed young victims they found online to create child pornography, and then blackmailed them into engaging in self-harm, “masochistic abuse,” and other extreme “acts of degradation” — live on camera — simply for “the enjoyment of members of the Enterprise.”
Between January 2020 and January 2021, members of the group allegedly worked together “to find and recruit minor victims on Discord or online gaming platforms,” and even urged victims as young as 11 to abuse their siblings and to kill themselves, telling one minor victim to overdose on medication or hang themself from a ceiling fan, the indictment alleges.
Members of “Greggy’s Cult” would host sexually explicit “live events” with victims on Discord and record the sessions, using those recordings to then blackmail victims into engaging in even more extreme acts, according to the indictment.
The indictment charges 22-year-old Camden Rodriguez of Longmont, Colorado; 22-year-old Rumaldo Valdez of Honolulu, Hawaii; 26-year-old Zachary Dosch of Albuquerque, New Mexico; 28-year-old David Brilhante of San Diego, California; and 29-year-old Hector Bermudez of New York with a total of 10 counts related to engaging in a child exploitation enterprise, producing child pornography, and making threats across state lines. Not all five men face all 10 counts.
They were arrested on Tuesday throughout the United States, according to the Justice Department.
The top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, where the indictment was filed, called their alleged conduct “depraved” and “monstrous.”
“I strongly urge parents and caregivers to have conversations with their children about the dangers of communicating online with strangers and individuals who seek to cruelly exploit them,” the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Joseph Nocella Jr., said in a statement.
For much of the past year, federal authorities have been issuing similar warnings about online predators operating much like “Greggy’s Cult,” especially members of the online extremist network 764, who often extort young victims into self-harm but also desensitize them with neo-Nazi or other extremist propaganda and push victims to commit extreme acts of violence against others, including mass shootings.
Members of “Greggy’s Cult” became “prominent members of 764,” the Justice Department said on Tuesday.
The 764 network was started in late 2020 or early 2021 by Bradley Cadenhead, a 15-year-old in Stephenville, Texas, who named it after the first three digits of his local ZIP code. He later pleaded guilty to child pornography-related charges and is serving an 80-year prison sentence in a Texas state prison.
In the midst of his case, Cadenhead told a clinical psychologist that after starting 764 he emulated “Greggy’s Cult” because it received so much media attention for blackmailing people into self-harm, but that 764 was meant to “take it to a whole different level … a lot worse,” according to court documents filed in the case.
Since then, according to authorities, 764 has grown into more of an ideology than a singular group, inspiring offshoots and subgroups around the world that mirror 764 but use different names to help keep social media companies and law enforcement from tracking them.
Testifying to a Senate panel in September, FBI Director Kash Patel described 764 as “modern day terrorism in America.”
As ABC News has previously reported, the FBI is conducting more than 350 investigations across the United States tied to 764 and similar networks. Even before the latest indictment, the Justice Department had publicly charged at least 30 people in recent years with suspected ties to 764 or affiliated networks.
Two of those previously charged were Valdez and Dosch, who were both named in the indictment unsealed in New York on Tuesday.
Valdez was first arrested by the FBI in May on separate charges filed in Hawaii, where he had been serving as a petty officer at a Naval station in Wahiawa. He recently pleaded guilty to one child pornography-related charge in that case, but he is now facing new charges.
Dosch was first arrested by federal authorities in June 2021 on separate charges filed in New Mexico. A year later, he pleaded guilty to cyberstalking and child pornography-related charges, admitting in court that he coerced minors online into self-harm and sexual activity, and he was released pending sentencing.
However, as of Tuesday — three years later — Dosch had yet to be sentenced in that case. It’s unclear why his sentencing never happened.
But charging documents filed against Valdez in May said that an unnamed member of an online group — identified to ABC News as “Greggy’s Cult” — had provided the FBI with information about the conduct of Valdez and others on Discord.
An attorney representing Dosch declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
In a recent statement to ABC News, a Discord representative said the service is “committed to user safety” and that the “horrific actions of groups like this have no place on Discord or anywhere in society.”
According to a Discord spokesperson, the platform invests “heavily” in specialized teams and newly-developed artificial intelligence tools that can “disrupt these networks, remove violative content, and take action against bad actors on our platform.” Discord also said it shares intelligence with other platforms, which can help identify bad actors even before Discord has spotted them.
Discord also said it cooperates with law enforcement, proactively providing tips and other information to them, and quickly responds to subpoenas.
According to court documents, Discord’s tips have led to many arrests, including the arrest of Cadenhead, the Texas teen who started 764, and Dosch’s initial arrest in 2021.
Dosch and the other four men charged in the latest indictment will appear in federal court in New York at a later date, according to the Justice Department.
Attorneys for Valdez, Bermudez and Rodriguez did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News. As of Wednesday morning, it was unclear if Brilhante had been assigned an attorney.
(NEW YORK) — Nineteen people are confirmed dead in Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa tore through the island as a Category 5 hurricane this week — and that death toll is expected to rise, officials said.
Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Dana Morris Dixon said there are credible reports of several other fatalities, but they won’t be counted in the official death toll until the bodies are retrieved.
“We are at 19 confirmed, but we do expect that that number will change today,” she said on Friday.
Melissa ripped across Jamaica with torrential rain and rough winds after making landfall on Tuesday as a Category 5 hurricane, one of the most powerful landfalls on record in the Atlantic basin.
Thirteen cargo relief flights arrived on Thursday at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston and more than 20 additional cargo flights are expected to arrive on Friday, according to Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport Daryl Vaz.
Eight to 10 U.S. government helicopters that are capable of airlifting patients are also on the way, he said.
“The relief and the support we have gotten is overwhelming. And we thank our partners all across the world,” Vaz said.
As Jamaicans start their recovery, many remain in the dark.
Jamaica Public Service, the nation’s electric utility, reported that 462,000 customers — about 66% of customers — remained without power Friday morning.
