Jaw-Dropping Footage Shows Passengers ‘Hanging Like Bats' in Crashed Delta Jet
The jaw-dropping clip, recorded by a passenger who was inverted himself, shows a shockingly calm cabin—save for some muffled shouts—with survivors typing on their phones as they dangled in the air, possibly still in shock about what had happened.
'We hit the ground and we were sideways, and then we were hanging upside down like bats,' Peter Koukov told ABC News. 'It all happened pretty, pretty fast.'
Koukov said some passengers dangled helplessly until rescuers arrived to safely bring them down. His own recording showed the flight crew ushering those who were able to get down safely off the Bombardier CRJ-900 that had taken off from Minneapolis.
Pete Carlson, another passenger, said he was also shocked with how quickly the dramatic scene played out.
'The one minute you're landing and kind of waiting to see your friends and your people and the next minute you're physically upside down and just really turned around,' he told ABC.
John Nelson, a third passenger, said many on board opted to calmly dangle from their seats at first because the flight crew instructed them to. Passengers took matters into their own hands not long after, he said, adding that he helped bring down those around him after he undid his seatbelt and plopped onto the plane's ceiling, which had become its floor.
'You heard the flight attendants yelling, 'Open the door. Everybody, take your stuff and get out now,'' he recounted to ABC. 'We all worked together and got out of there as quickly as we could.'
There were 80 people on board the flight, including its 76 passengers—of which 22 were Canadian nationals—and four flight crew.
Perhaps miraculously, there were no fatalities in the crash. However, three people—a child, a man in his 60s, and a woman in her 40s—were rushed to a hospital in critical condition, officials said. A total of 21 passengers required hospitalization, the airline later said, but all but two had been released by Tuesday morning.
A definitive cause for the crash is yet to be identified by authorities.
Pilots and aviation experts have noted the jet appeared to make a hard landing before it was stripped of one wing and overturned in a fireball. An air traffic control recording said the aircraft was being battered by winds as fierce as 40 mph before landing—part of a nasty winter storm sweeping across the region.
While some reports described the runway as 'icy' with winds gusting to 70 mph at landing, the airport's fire chief, Todd Aitken, told reporters the surface was actually 'dry' and 'there was no crosswind conditions' at landing.
Despite being on foreign soil, the crash is sure to put pressure on Donald Trump's administration. It's the fourth high-profile aviation crash involving American planes within his first month back in office—a period that has been particularly tumultuous within the Federal Aviation Administration.
About 400 termination emails went out to FAA staffers on Friday as part of Trump's far-reaching cuts to the federal government's workforce and overall spending.
The timing of the firings has left many scratching their heads, as it comes on the heels of the midair collision of a U.S. Army helicopter and American Airlines jet on Jan. 29 that killed 67; a medical transport plane crashing in Philadelphia that killed six; and the Bering Air passenger flight that crashed in Alaska on Feb. 6 and killed 10.
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Another gold rush could bring open pit mines to South Dakota's Black Hills
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- A gold rush brought settlers to South Dakota's Black Hills roughly 150 years ago, chasing the dream of wealth and displacing Native Americans in the process. Now, a new crop of miners driven by gold prices at more than $3,000 an ounce are seeking to return to the treasured landscape, promising an economic boost while raising fears of how modern gold extraction could forever change the region. 'These impacts can be long term and make it so that tourism and outdoor recreation is negatively impacted,' said Lilias Jarding, executive director of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. 'Our enjoyment of the Black Hills as a peaceful place, a sacred place, is disturbed.' The Black Hills encompass over 1.2 million acres (485,622 hectares), rising up from the Great Plains in southwest South Dakota and extending into Wyoming. The jagged peaks are smaller than those of the Rocky Mountains, but the lush pine-covered hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux people and serve as a destination for millions of tourists who visit Mount Rushmore and state parks. One gold mine now operates in the Black Hills, but companies have proposals before state and federal agencies for another one, plus exploratory drilling sites that they hope will lead to full-fledged mines. That has prompted opposition by Native American tribes and environmentalists who argue the projects are close to sacred sites, will contaminate waterways and permanently scar the landscape. Gold extraction has changed dramatically in the decades since prospectors first began panning for gold in the Black Hills. The industry now typically relies on massive trucks and diggers that create deep, multitiered pits and use chemicals like cyanide to extract the gold. The land can never return to its original state. The Homestake mine, once the largest and deepest gold mine in the Western Hemisphere, now sits barren in Lead, South Dakota, and is used for scientific research. Interest in Black Hills gold mining has soared along with the price of the metal. When the Homestake mine closed in 2002, gold sold for about $300 an ounce. Now it goes for about 10 times as much. Joseph Cavatoni, senior market strategist at the World Gold Council, attributes the price spike to global economic uncertainty. 'Gold tends to be a stable asset,' he said. 'That actually performs well in inflationary times, and holds its value in recessionary times. That's why gold as an asset in investment.' President Donald Trump also boosted the industry by issuing an executive order in March to increase American mineral production, calling for expedited permitting and reviews. Colin Paterson, professor emeritus of geological engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, notes that Black Hills gold is encased in rock. To extract it, the rock is crushed and then a chemical like cyanide is used to dissolve the mineral and remove it. Coeur Mining runs the single active mine in the Black Hills, but the company Dakota Gold has plans for an open pit mine to begin operating in 2029. The company is also targeting the area near the old Homestake site to build an underground mine where workers would descend hundreds or even thousands of feet into shafts. Jack Henris, president and chief operating officer of Dakota Gold, estimated the open pit mine would create up to 250 jobs and result in the company paying the state up to $400 million in taxes over the life of the mine. Dakota Gold will conduct an environmental study and surveys of soil and vegetation to ensure safe operation, Henris said. 'Most of the people that work here are from this area and just love to live here,' he said. 'So we're a big part of the Hills and we love them just as much as other folks.' To a great extent, gold mining helped create the modern Black Hills region. The U.S. government signed a treaty in 1868 that recognized the Sioux Nation's right to the Black Hills, but the government seized the land after the discovery of gold and allowed settlers into the region. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled the Sioux were entitled to compensation, but they have not accepted any and maintain their claim to the land. Tribes have largely opposed mining in the Black Hills. 'There's a central truth about mining in the Black Hills in that it was never the most mineral rich place there ever was,' said Taylor Gunhammer, local organizer with the Indigenous advocacy group NDN Collective and an Oglala Sioux, one of the Lakota people. 'It's not even the actual mineral content of the Black Hills that is so attractive to mining companies. It's the permissive nature of the officials who oversee mining.' Some proposed projects, such as Dakota Gold's mine, are on private land and only subject to state rules, not the U.S. Forest Service regulations required for projects on public acreage. Environmentalists have focused their opposition on the possibility of chemicals leaks. They note that Coeur's Wharf mine has had nearly 200 spills and that the former Homestake mine was closed because it contaminated a nearby creek. Coeur's environmental manager, Jasmine McCauley, said in a statement that each spill was "thoroughly investigated, mitigated, and corrective actions are put in place to prevent reoccurrence.' The company is always improving its processes, she added. Jarding, of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, said she remains concerned about the number of projects in the works. 'It's really important that people understand the exponential growth in mining activity that's been happening in the Black Hills over the last five years or so,' Jarding said. "There are currently active mining claims on 271,000 acres in the Black Hills. That's 20% of the whole Black Hills that is potentially going to be subject to mining.'
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Indianapolis World War II soldier's remains returned to family after 1940s recovery mix-up
Family chatter about childhood memories was shared as an escorted vehicle drove to an Indianapolis International Airport gate. Military and public safety officials were preparing for the landing of an American Airlines flight, while the family of late U.S. Army Pvt. LeRoy B. Miller Jr., talked about the lives he couldn't watch grow up. The 31-year-old World War II soldier was reported missing in action in Germany in 1944. On Aug. 15, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency brought Miller's remains home. "The information they gave us explained he died from an explosion," his great-niece, Avila Moore, told IndyStar. "We didn't know what happened back then. Was he captured? Was he tortured? Now we know." The agency is a U.S. Department of Defence branch tasked with providing the fullest possible accounting of missing personnel from past U.S. conflicts. This involves searching for, locating, identifying and returning the remains of missing service members to their families. Moore's family had already buried who they thought was Miller back in the 1940s, when his tag was found in a mass grave site overseas, but after extensive DNA analysis and research, the family finally has the right soldier, and an extraction will need to be made for the original buried remains. "It's just hard to believe that it could happen," Miller's nephew, Lance Hamilton, told IndyStar. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced U.S. Army Pvt. LeRoy B. Miller Jr., 31, was accounted for on Aug. 13, 2024, after his death during World War II. Miller was assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division in November 1944. His battalion captured the town of Kommerscheidt, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest. A series of heavy German counterattacks eventually forced his battalion to withdraw. Miller was reported killed in action on Nov. 8, 1944, while fighting enemy forces at Kommerscheidt. His remains could not be recovered after the attack, according to the agency. Following the end of the war, the American Graves Registration Command was tasked with investigating and recovering missing American personnel in Europe. During that effort, a recovery team found a mass grave at Kommerscheidt that contained the remains of several American and German soldiers on Sept. 11, 1947. "Recovery effort was heroic in that it was very difficult to do because the locals didn't really want to help," Hamilton said. "They wanted to bury everybody and just let it go, but with pressing investigations, they're bringing everybody home. So they got his bones, and preserved them to a point where they could find out who he was." The exhumation team found Miller's identification tag on one set of remains. The remains were sent to the United States Military Cemetery in Neuville, Belgium, for processing. Based on the tag, officials identified the remains as Miller's and transferred them to his family for final burial in America. But 73 years later, in 2017, an agency historian analyzed documentation regarding three sets of unidentified remains while studying unresolved American losses in the Hürtgen area. Scientists considered the possibility that Miller's remains may have been commingled in the grave or misprocessed and misidentified in the 1940s. At the time, Miller was identified based on the presence of his identification tags, but an updated investigation determined that the original identification was made in error. So whoever Miller's family buried was not related to them. "I've always had kind of a close relationship with him, which may sound a bit strange," Hamilton, who has never met the soldier, said. "My grandmother always talked so fondly of him. He was a very accomplished musician who loved piano and composing." Hamilton said he's always carried Miller's accomplishments with him. He said Miller will always be remembered for his creativity. His family still has some of his records. Miller was one of the youngest composers to have his music played by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. "He just wanted to create music," Hamilton said. "That's all he ever really wanted to do, but he felt that he had to go to war. It wasn't a choice. He had to do it." He was a classical pianist, and Moore said they're going to be playing some of his music at his memorial. "We live in the home he was raised in, and I found some music in a piano bench," Moore said. Hamilton said identifying Miller's remains has been a long process, and he was skeptical of the findings at first. The family didn't believe anything like this could happen, and they didn't believe the remains that matched up with their DNA was Miller's. "But, out of our skepticism, we kept slowly proceeding to find the truth, and here we are," Hamilton said. An honorable transfer happened with his remains arriving at the Indianapolis International Airport aboard an American Airlines flight on Aug. 15, 2025. The ceremony included military honors, the family being escorted, and the remains being transported to Flanner Funeral Home. A graveside service with full military honors is scheduled for Aug. 22 at Crown Hill Cemetery.
