Indigenous group criticizes Toronto for placing ancestor's remains on truck for 18 months
City updates site work after historic remains found in 2023, as an indigenous group criticizes handling of ancestral remains.
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CTV News
25 minutes ago
- CTV News
Broken altimeter, ignored warnings: Hearings reveal what went wrong in DC crash that killed 67
National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, on monitor left, swears-in the witnesses from left: Dan Cooper, Sikorsky Aircraft, Lance Gant, Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Army CW4 Kylene Lewis, Steve Braddom, U.S. Army, and Scott Rosengren, U.S. Army, during the NTSB fact-finding hearing on the DCA midair collision accident, at the National Transportation and Safety Board boardroom, Wednesday, July 30, 2025, in Washington. Over three days of sometimes contentious hearings this week, the National Transportation Safety Board interrogated Federal Aviation Administration and Army officials about a list of things that went wrong and contributed to a Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet colliding over Washington, D.C., killing 67 people. The biggest revelations: The helicopter's altimeter gauge was broken, and controllers warned the FAA years earlier about the dangers that helicopters presented. At one point NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy scolded the FAA for not addressing safety concerns. 'Are you kidding me? Sixty-seven people are dead! How do you explain that? Our bureaucratic process?' she said. 'Fix it. Do better.' Victims of the January crash included a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches and four union steamfitters from the Washington area. Here is a look at the major takeaways from the hearings about the collision, which alarmed travelers before a string of other crashes and close calls this year added to their worries about flying: The helicopter's altimeter was wrong The helicopter was flying at 278 feet (85 metres) — well above the 200-foot (61-metre) ceiling on that route — when it collided with the airliner. But investigators said the pilots might not have realized that because the barometric altimeter they were relying on was reading 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 metres) lower than the altitude registered by the flight data recorder. The NTSB subsequently found similar discrepancies in the altimeters of three other helicopters from the same unit. An expert with Sikorsky, which makes the Black Hawks, said the one that crashed was an older model that lacked the air data computers that make for more accurate altitude readings in newer versions. Army Chief Warrant Officer Kylene Lewis told the board that an 80- to 100-foot (24- to 30-metre) discrepancy between the different altimeters on a helicopter would not be alarming, because at lower altitudes she would be relying more on the radar altimeter than the barometric altimeter. Plus Army pilots strive to stay within 100 feet (30 metres) of target altitude on flights, so they could still do that even with their altimeters that far off. But Rick Dressler of medevac operator Metro Aviation told the NTSB that imprecision would not fly with his helicopters. When a helicopter route like the one the Black Hawk was flying that night includes an altitude limit, Dressler said, his pilots consider that a hard ceiling. FAA and Army defend actions, shift blame Both tried to deflect responsibility for the crash, but the testimony highlighted plenty of things that might have been done differently. The NTSB's final report will be done next year, but there likely will not be one single cause identified for the crash. 'I think it was a week of reckoning for the FAA and the U.S. Army in this accident,' aviation safety consultant and former crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti said. Army officials said the greater concern is that the FAA approved routes around Ronald Reagan International Airport with separation distances as small as 75 feet (23 metres) between helicopters and planes when planes are landing on a certain runway at Reagan. 'The fact that we have less than 500-foot separation is a concern for me,' said Scott Rosengren, chief engineer in the office that manages the Army's utility helicopters. Army Chief Warrant Officer David Van Vechten said he was surprised the air traffic controller let the helicopter proceed while the airliner was circling to land at Reagan's secondary runway, which is used when traffic for the main runway stacks up and accounts for about 5% of flights. Van Vechten said he was never allowed to fly under a landing plane as the Black Hawk did, but only a handful of the hundreds of times he flew that route involved planes landing on that runway. Other pilots in the unit told crash investigators it was routine to be directed to fly under landing planes, and they believed that was safe if they stuck to the approved route. Frank McIntosh, the head of the FAA's air traffic control organization, said he thinks controllers at Reagan 'were really dependent upon the use of visual separation' to keep traffic moving through the busy airspace. The NTSB said controllers repeatedly said they would just 'make it work.' They sometimes used 'squeeze plays' to land planes with minimal separation. On the night of the crash, a controller twice asked the helicopter pilots whether they had the jet in sight, and the pilots said they did and asked for visual separation approval so they could use their own eyes to maintain distance. Testimony at the hearing raised serious questions about how well the crew could spot the plane while wearing night vision goggles and whether the pilots were even looking in the right spot. The controller acknowledged in an interview that the plane's pilots were never warned when the helicopter was on a collision path, but controllers did not think telling the plane would have made a difference at that point. The plane was descending to land and tried to pull up at the last second after getting a warning in the cockpit, but it was too late. FAA was warned about the dangers of helicopter traffic in D.C. An FAA working group tried to get a warning added to helicopter charts back in 2022 urging pilots to use caution whenever the secondary runway was in use, but the agency refused. The working group said 'helicopter operations are occurring in a proximity that has triggered safety events. These events have been trending in the wrong direction and increasing year over year.' Separately, a different group at the airport discussed moving the helicopter route, but those discussions did not go anywhere. And a manager at a regional radar facility in the area urged the FAA in writing to reduce the number of planes taking off and landing at Reagan because of safety concerns. The NTSB has also said the FAA failed to recognize a troubling history of 85 near misses around Reagan in the three years before the collision, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said 'every sign was there that there was a safety risk and the tower was telling you that.' But after the accident, the FAA transferred managers out of the airport instead of acknowledging that they had been warned. 'What you did is you transferred people out instead of taking ownership over the fact that everybody in FAA in the tower was saying there was a problem,' Homendy said. 'But you guys are pointing out, 'Welp, our bureaucratic process. Somebody should have brought it up at some other symposium.'' Associated Press writer Leah Askarinam contributed. Josh Funk, The Associated Press
CTV News
7 hours ago
- CTV News
Edmonton's Food Bank wants to ‘bridge some of the gaps' at this year's Heritage Festival
The number of people relying on Edmonton's Food Bank has almost doubled in three years, so the organization is hoping Edmontonians will come through.
CBC
8 hours ago
- CBC
G7 money going toward keeping bears out of Canmore through fruit tree removal
Social Sharing More than a month after the event ended, June's G7 summit continues to affect the Bow Valley. The Town of Canmore and the Biosphere Institute of the Bow Valley are expanding its Fruit Tree Removal Incentive program, through funding from the global gathering earlier this summer. The program, first introduced in 2019, offers a financial incentive for property owners to remove fruit-bearing trees, in an effort to keep bears from being attracted to the town. What's new this year is additional funding for fruit-bearing trees to be replaced with new trees. "We set aside in excess of $28,000 that is specifically earmarked to pay for replacement trees in the community here in Canmore," said Biosphere Institute executive director Gareth Thompson.. The initiative will reimburse the cost of tree removal for up to $500 per property, with this year's additional funding offering up to $500 for tree-replacement costs. "We know from our evidence that it will go better if we can offer to replace the tree that the homeowner removes," said Thompson. The funding will enable the town to support fruit tree removal and replacement for up to 70 homes, said Thompson. Non-native plants like crabapple and cherry trees can be found in the backyards of some Canmore residents, potentially drawing in hungry bears. "They're beautiful plants, but we're just coming to realize in the last decade that these represent a big hazard because they attract bears into town, often resulting in the bear's death," said Thompson. He pointed to an incident last August in which a black bear was destroyed after eating crabapples in a Canmore backyard. "Here in Canmore, we take our wildlife very seriously, and even the death of one bear is too many." Thompson said by keeping bears away from Canmore, the fruit-bearing tree removal program is supporting nature. "There's abundant food in the woods and the area surrounding the town of Canmore," he said. "So we're actually keeping more bears in the ecosystem by removing these food attractants in town." Black bears and grizzlies are currently seeking out high-calorie food like fruits, as they prepare for hibernation. Human-wildlife coexistence a priority for G7 Town of Canmore communications advisor Nicky Pacas said the town is really lucky to have local programs benefit with funding from the G7. She said the funding stems from human-wildlife coexistence being a "priority concern" for the summit. "They wanted to put some funding in place for after the summit to benefit the residents of Canmore, and to focus on sort of these priority areas that they were trying to draw attention to, also during the summit," she said. Eligible replacement trees include trembling aspen, balsam poplar, fruitless spring snow crabapple trees, and river or paper birch. Due to the one-time nature of the funding, the tree-replacement program is only being offered this year. A similar initiative took place prior to the G7, when buffaloberry bushes were removed in Kananaskis Country to keep bears away from the summit.
