Passengers evacuate plane on slides after Delta flight aborts takeoff
Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(ATLANTA) — Hundreds of passengers were forced to evacuate on slides during a snowstorm after their Delta flight aborted takeoff from Atlanta due to an engine issue Friday morning, the airline said.
Delta Flight 2668 was traveling from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to Minneapolis-St. Paul when it suspended takeoff shortly after 9 a.m. due to “an indication of an engine issue,” the airline said.
Passengers exited the Boeing 757-300 aircraft through emergency slides and ground transportation was used to take them back to the terminal.
Four passengers reported minor injuries in the incident, with one transported to an area hospital, the airport said. The other three were treated at the scene, the airport said. The nature of their injuries was not immediately clear.
The plane was carrying 201 passengers and seven crew members.
“Nothing is more important than the safety of our people and customers, and we apologize to our customers for their experience,” Delta said in a statement. “We are working to support our customers and get them to their destinations as safely and quickly as possible.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said it will investigate.
Operations at the Atlanta airport were delayed due to the incident and the “ongoing severe weather,” the airport said in a statement.
Approximately 2 inches of snow had fallen by noon in Atlanta, the most in seven years, as a massive winter storm impacts the South.
More than 2,600 flights across the country have been canceled as of midday Friday due to the storm, with Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas and Nashville seeing the biggest impacts.
(SMITHFIELD, VA)– A Virginia man allegedly had a cache of weapons, a “go box” and used a photo of President Joe Biden for target practice, according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors this week.
Brad Spafford was charged earlier in the month on a gun violation, but in a detention memo filed on Monday, prosecutors in Virginia outlined something allegedly more alarming.
When FBI agents raided Spafford’s home, they allegedly found 150 IEDs which were assessed by authorities as pipe bombs, with some marked “lethal,” a “go-bag” in the event something happened, and more pipe bombs in his room “unsecured.”
The court documents point out that Spafford had his two young children living in the house with him.
The government also found a jar with potentially explosive material kept in the fridge labeled “do not touch,” documents said.
Spafford came on the government’s radar in 2023 when a confidential source told investigators that he blew off parts of his hand while allegedly making a homemade IED in 2021, according to court documents.
The detention memo was filed to prevent Spafford from being released pending trial, which was granted, according to court records.
The Justice Department also found that he allegedly supported political assassinations.
“The defendant has used pictures of the President for target practice, expressed support for political assassinations, and recently sought qualifications in sniper-rifle shooting at a local range,” prosecutors wrote. “His release poses an extreme danger to those he lives with, the general community, and also the pretrial officers who will be tasked with periodically inspecting his residence for firearms including dangerous and unstable explosives.”
Spafford is on bond pending trial but DOJ is moving to have him locked up.
(SEATTLE) — Boeing machinists on Wednesday rejected a new contract proposal that would’ve ended a weekslong work stoppage against the embattled aerospace company — and the union said the strike will go on.
Sixty-four percent of workers voted to reject the new contract, according to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), the union representing 33,000 Boeing workers in Washington, Oregon and California.
Representatives for Boeing said Wednesday night the company did not have a comment on the vote.
The proposed contract would have delivered a 35% raise over the four-year duration of the contract, upping the 25% cumulative raise provided in a previous offer overwhelmingly rejected by workers in a vote last month. Workers had initially sought a 40% cumulative pay increase.
The proposal also called for hiking Boeing’s contribution to a 401(k) plan, but it declined to fulfill workers’ call for a reinstatement of the company’s defined pension. The contract would have included a $7,000 ratification bonus for each worker, as well as a performance bonus that Boeing had sought to jettison.
But union leaders said the concessions offered in the proposal were not enough to meet the demands of rank-and-file union members.
“This contract struggle began over ten years ago when the company overreached and created a wound that may never heal for many members,” said Jon Holden, president of IAM District 751 in Seattle, in a statement after the vote. “I don’t have to tell you all how challenging it has been for our membership through the pandemic, the crashes, massive inflation, and the need to address the losses stemming from the 2014 contract.”
The union said the strike will continue as they return to the bargaining table with the company.
Hours before workers cast ballots on Wednesday, Boeing released an earnings report showing the company had lost a staggering $6.1 billion over the most recent quarter due primarily to costs associated with the strike.
“We have some really big rocks that we need to get behind us to move the company forward,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a letter to investors on Wednesday.
Ortberg singled out the strike as an issue that must be addressed “first and foremost.”
“We have been feverishly working to find a solution that works for the company and meets our employees’ needs,” Ortberg said.
The company and its workers have faced significant financial losses during the nearly six-week strike.
Union members have received $250 per week from a strike fund, beginning in the third week of the work stoppage. That compensation marks a major pay cut for many of the employees.
Mid-ranking workers involved in the strike typically make $20 per hour, which totals $800 per 40-hour work week, while higher-paid members earn salaries upward of $100,000 per year, or nearly $2,000 per week.
“The question is whether the employees and their union determine that they have the power to get more from Boeing,” Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Atmosphere Research Group, told ABC News. “It’s whether they think they can extract more from Boeing, or Boeing says, ‘You know what, this is it.'”
The strike was set to cost Boeing $108 million per day in lost revenue, amounting to as much as $5.5 billion in losses should the work stoppage last 50 days, investment bank TD Cowen said in a report reviewed by ABC News at the outset of the dispute. So far, the strike has lasted 40 days.
In September, Boeing announced furloughs and pay cuts for some white-collar employees in response to the strike. Last week, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg announced plans to cut 17,000 jobs, which amounts to about 10% of its global workforce.
“This is really painful for Boeing,” Richard Aboulafia, managing director of aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, told ABC News.
The most recent IAM strike against Boeing in the Pacific Northwest, in 2008, lasted 57 days. Work stoppages undertaken by unionized Boeing employees in the same region have historically lasted an average of 60 days, a Bank of America Global Research analysis found after examining seven previous strikes, the earliest in 1948.
In the days leading up to Wednesday’s vote, the outcome remained unclear, Jake Rosenfeld, a professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, who studies labor, told ABC News.
“What are the workers going to do?” Rosenfeld said. “That’s a really tough question.”
(NEW YORK) — New video obtained by ABC News shows UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killer waiting for him moments before shooting him outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel.
The video shows others pass by, and then, when the masked gunman sees Thompson, he runs across the street and opens fire.
The video, which has not previously been seen publicly, appears to support the police narrative that the shooter targeted Thompson in the Wednesday morning attack because he loitered while others wandered by.
Police haven’t established a motive but said they haven’t uncovered evidence that would show the killing had anything to do with Thompson’s private life.
The unidentified suspect appeared to have planned his movements with precision, but law enforcement is “on the right track,” Mayor Eric Adams told New York ABC station WABC on Sunday.
“As I say, the net is closing and closing,” Adams said. “This was an extremely challenging investigation. A fully masked person. The amount of detective work it took to put the pieces together — we feel we’re getting closer and closer.”
NYPD detectives arrived this weekend in Georgia. Investigators have said the suspect took a bus to New York, arriving on Nov. 24 from Atlanta, although it was unclear if his travels began in that city. And the FBI is assisting the nationwide manhunt, according to law enforcement sources.
Back in New York on Sunday, members of the New York Police Department’s dive team were again searching underwater in the Central Park. They were seen in the water near the Bethesda Fountain.
The masked gunman shot Thompson at point-blank range at 6:44 a.m. on Dec. 4 outside the New York Hilton Midtown, where Thompson’s company was holding an investors conference. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch described the attack as “brazen” and “targeted.”
Adams on Sunday declined to comment on specific evidence, saying only that “every piece is important.” And he spoke generally about the ongoing underwater search.
“Everywhere is important. Everyplace is important,” Adams said, adding a moment later, “It’s dark down there, you know.”
The suspect’s backpack — with Monopoly money inside — was found nearby in Central Park. Police have not yet recovered the distinctive gun used in the shooting.
On Wednesday morning, right after the shooting, the suspect fled by bike through Central Park to the Upper West Side. He then took a taxi to the Port Authority bus facility at 178th Street and boarded a bus out of New York City, according to police.
NYPD officials released new images this weekend of the suspect in the back of a taxi, where he could be seen peering through the open slider in the partition between the seats. Another photo appeared to show the man walking by the window of a cab.
“I don’t want to do anything that’s going to tip him off that we’re on his trail, but we feel really good where we are,” Adams said on Sunday. “Finding the knapsack, getting the cab photos, looking at some of the evidence that we have available to us, we feel really good where we are.”
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson, Jon Haworth, Ivan Pereira and David Brennan contributed to this report.
