Trans teen stabbed in Miami airport, police investigating as potential hate crime
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(MIAMI) — 17-year-old transgender teen was stabbed inside a terminal at Miami International Airport at about 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, sending her to the hospital in critical condition and prompting a disruption of service, police and airport officials said.
The victim hasn’t been able to speak due to their injuries, police told ABC News Monday, and therefore has not been able to offer detectives further details on the incident. Police said they are looking into the incident as a potential hate crime.
Alexander Paul Love, 29, was charged with attempted murder with a deadly weapon in the first degree and premeditated attempted murder in the stabbing. He appeared in Miami-Dade Bond Court Monday and is not eligible for bond.
The preliminary investigation revealed that Love and the victim were on the fourth floor of the terminal in the pre-security area, according to officials. The teen was eating while seated on the floor when Love allegedly stabbed the teen without provocation 18 times in the arms, shoulders, neck, face, head and legs with a butcher knife.
The arrest affidavit states that when the victim tried to free herself from the attack, Love allegedly grabbed her and tried to pull and push her over the fourth floor railing where the victim would have landed on the first floor of the airport. The victim escaped and ran downstairs where she received medical assistance.
Love claimed, according to the affidavit, that he was “possibly drugged and someone inserted an unknown object in his rectum.”
“The defendant is not certain the victim is responsible for this,” the affidavit continued. The affidavit notes there was no indication of alcohol or drug use.
Police officers took the subject into custody in the area where the stabbing occurred and recovered the knife. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue responded and transported the victim to JMH Ryder Trauma Center in critical condition.
The “situation was swiftly contained,” airport officials said.
“We want to assure the public that the situation is under control and the safety of our passengers, staff, and visitors remains our top priority,” the Miami-Dade Aviation Department said.
(NEW YORK) — United States intelligence and police officials are alarmed by two unrelated terror attacks in Europe last weekend and what those attacks say about the current threat environment in the U.S., according to a New York Police Department briefing obtained by ABC News.
“There is no initial indication that the two attacks are linked, however, both incidents underscore the current complex and elevated terrorism/targeted violence threat environment as well as the persistent challenge of low-tech tactics being used against vulnerable targets, including public gatherings and houses of worship,” the briefing said.
The attacks cited in the report include a deadly stabbing in Germany and an arson attack on a synagogue in France.
In Germany, a lone offender, armed with knife, indiscriminately stabbed civilians at a music festival on Aug. 23. Three people were killed in the attack and eight others were injured. ISIS claimed responsibility, and a 15-year-old boy was arrested, though it’s unclear exactly how closely related he was to the terror group.
In France, an individual carried out an arson on a vehicle near a synagogue on Aug. 24, followed by an attempted attack on the building itself.
The prosecutor’s office said two cars were set on fire on the grounds of the synagogue, one of which contained a gas bottle, causing an explosion. One police officer suffered injuries. A suspect was arrested after a firefight with law enforcement.
“While there are no early indications that these two attacks — which occurred in different countries, focused on separate targets, and leveraged distinct low-tech tactics — are related, they nevertheless underscore the complex and dynamic threat landscape which is comprised of malicious actors from across the ideological spectrum and exacerbated by tense global flashpoints, including the ongoing Israel-Hamas war,” the document said.
The NYPD said the attacks will likely resonate with malicious actors, “serving as tactical/targeting inspiration for follow-on acts of terrorism and targeted violence.”
ABC News’ Felix Franz, Nadine El-Bawab, Jon Haworth and Victoria Beaule contributed to this report.
Jennifer Homendy, Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, speaks during investigative hearing, into the blowout of a left mid exit door plug on a Boeing 737-9 MAX during Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 flight on January 5, 2024, at the National Transportation Safety Board headquarters in Washington D.C. United States on August 6, 2024. (Bryan Olin Dozier/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Newly released documents describe the chaotic moments on board Alaska Airlines flight 1282 after the door plug blew out shortly after takeoff earlier this year, as the National Transportation Safety Board holds a two-day hearing into the matter.
The NTSB released thousands of pages of documents and interview transcripts, including with members of the crew, on Tuesday, amid its investigation into the Jan. 5 blowout on the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane.
The crew described the frantic, confusing moments after the door plug blew out minutes after taking off from Portland International Airport during interviews with NTSB investigators.
Because flight attendants were strapped into their jump seats in the galley, they had no idea what had just happened, the documents show. They also could not see into the cabin and were focusing on getting their oxygen masks on. They only knew there was a depressurization event because an automated PA announcement came on to alert passengers to use their masks, the documents show. Bright cabin lights also turned on.
Communication in the cockpit was extremely limited because of noise. Headsets flew off and the oxygen masks were making a squealing noise after the pilots took them off, according to the documents. The pilots decided to put the masks back on to stop the squealing, but then their eye protection began to fog on the final approach, according to the documents.
The pilots had to continuously repeat certain messages to air traffic controllers because the audio was so bad, according to the documents.
Flight attendants also could not make contact with the flight deck because of the noise. One flight attendant told NTSB investigators she didn’t know if there was a hole in the plane in the flight deck and worried the pilots may have been incapacitated, before ultimately being able to make contact with them, according to the documents.
“The scariest thing was I didn’t have exact communication with my flight deck and at first I didn’t know if the decompression was in the front, if we have pilots, and not being able to fully communicate with the back and just know exactly what happened and what was going on,” the unidentified flight attendant told the NTSB, according to the documents. “I think out of all, that was probably the scariest part out of all that.”
The rear flight attendant was initially certain that passengers died, the crew member told NTSB investigators. The flight was nearly full with the exception of a few seats; the two seats next to the missing door plug happened to be empty. When the rear flight attendant felt it was safe enough to leave his oxygen mask, he saw empty seats near the hole and was sure people were sucked out, he told the NTSB, adding that it’s so rare for people not to move into an empty window seat or empty row on a full flight.
“At the point where I first saw the hole, I saw five empty seats,” he told investigators. “In that moment I thought we lost — I was certain that we had lost people because we were full except for a few open seats and I did not recall that 26 A and B had not been occupied. So I was absolutely certain that we had lost people out of the hole and that we had casualties.”
The plane safely made an emergency landing and no one was seriously injured in the incident. Tray tables were ripped off and hit passengers on their way out of the aircraft, and one teen lost his top and was badly bruised, according to the documents.
The pilots had no idea there was a hole in the plane until after the plane landed and passengers deplaned, according to the documents.
“I knew that there was something wrong,” one pilot said, according to the transcript. “I knew that there was a — there was air being brought into the airplane where there shouldn’t be, but I had no idea if it was a hole, if it was a window, if it was a main cabin door. I had no idea. I had no idea. I never heard anything from the flight attendants.”
The NTSB has not been able to interview the 737 door plug manager because the employee is on medical leave, the agency said.
The documents were publicly released as NTSB began holding an investigative hearing into the door plug incident. The hearing, held on Tuesday and Wednesday, will “assist in obtaining information necessary to determine the facts, circumstances, and probable cause of the transportation accident or incident under investigation and to make recommendations to improve transportation safety,” the NTSB said in a statement.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Boeing Commercial Airplanes senior executive Elizabeth Lund said the company is working on a design change of the door plug to make it even more secure. Planes currently in service will be retrofitted hopefully within a year, she said.
After Lund detailed changes the company has implemented in the months following the incident under increased oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy issued a “word of caution.”
“This is not a PR campaign for Boeing,” she said. “You can talk all about where you are today. There’s going to be plenty of time for that. We want to know the safety improvements. But what is very confusing for a lot of people who are watching, who are listening, is what was going on then. This is an investigation on what happened on Jan. 5.”
An NTSB preliminary report released in February found that four bolts designed to prevent the door plug from falling off the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane were missing before the plug blew off the flight.
Boeing records reviewed by the NTSB showed that damaged rivets on the edge frame forward of the plug were replaced by Spirit AeroSystems employees at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Washington, on Sept. 19, 2023, according to the agency’s report.
Boeing had to open the plug by removing the two vertical movement arrestor bolts and two upper guide track bolts for the rivets to be replaced, but photo documentation obtained from Boeing showed evidence that the plug was closed with no bolts in three visible locations, according to the NTSB report.
One bolt area is obscured by insulation in the photo, though the NTSB said it was able to determine in its laboratory that that bolt was also not put back on.
During the hearing Tuesday, Lund said that paperwork authorizing the removal of the door plug, which would have documented the work being done, has not been found.
Homendy also addressed the culture between Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, after one unidentified Spirit employee told NTSB investigators, “Well, basically we’re the cockroaches of the factory.”
“What have you done since March to address that issue? Have you gotten feedback from your employees?” she asked Michael Riney, a customer relations director from Spirit AeroSystems based at the Renton facility.
Riney responded that he would discuss with his managers “to ensure they are soliciting that feedback” and would “personally follow up with them to understand what specifically I can do to help with that.”
