
20 killed in South Sudan plane crash, officials say
A small aircraft carrying oil workers in South Sudan's Unity State crashed on Wednesday, killing 20 people, an official said.
The plane crashed at the Unity oilfield airport on Wednesday morning as it was heading to the capital Juba, Gatwech Bipal, Unity State's information minister, said.
Bipal said the passengers were oil workers of the Greater Pioneer Operating Company (GPOC) a consortium that includes China National Petroleum Corporation and state-owned Nile Petroleum Corporation.
He said among the dead were two Chinese nationals and one Indian.
Bipal gave no more details on the circumstances that led to the crash. Media reports had initially put the death toll at 18 but Bipal told Reuters two survivors had later died. One person survived.
Several air crashes have occurred in war-torn South Sudan in recent years. In September 2018, at least 19 people died when a small aircraft carrying passengers from the capital Juba to the city of Yirol crashed.
In 2015, dozens of people were killed when a Russian-built cargo plane with passengers on board crashed after taking off from the airport in the capital Juba.
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Business Wire
an hour ago
- Business Wire
Rosen Law Firm Encourages GeneDx Holdings Corp. Investors to Inquire About Securities Class Action Investigation
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Why: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, announces an investigation of potential securities claims on behalf of shareholders of GeneDx Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: WGS) resulting from allegations that GeneDx may have issued materially misleading business information to the investing public. So What: If you purchased GeneDx securities you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. The Rosen Law Firm is preparing a class action seeking recovery of investor losses. What to do next: To join the prospective class action, go to or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email case@ for information on the class action. What is this about: On February 5, 2025, Grizzly Research published a report entitled 'Insiders Attest that GeneDx (Nasdaq: WGS) Is Actively Committing Widespread Fraud.' This report stated that Grizzly believed that GeneDx's 'growth is largely an illusion, driven by fraudulent schemes and illegal tactics deliberately aimed at exploiting Medicaid and Medicare systems to artificially inflate revenue.' On this news, GeneDx stock fell 6.7% on February 5, 2025. Why Rosen Law: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company at the time. At the time, Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone, the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by Law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: on Twitter: or on Facebook: Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.


New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Live Updates: Over 260 Dead After Air India Crash, Official Says, With One Survivor
Boeing suffered another setback on Thursday, when a crash of one of its passenger jets in western India renewed scrutiny of the company's safety record following a yearslong quality crisis. It could take months or years to determine the cause of the crash, in which an Air India passenger plane, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner carrying 242 passengers and crew members, slammed into a medical college in Ahmedabad, in the Indian state of Gujarat. Manufacturing issues may ultimately have little to do with what went wrong, but the episode — the first fatal crash involving a Dreamliner — could still lead to more scrutiny into concerns about Boeing's production practices that go back years. 'Our deepest condolences go out to the loved ones of the passengers and crew on board Air India Flight 171, as well as everyone affected in Ahmedabad,' Kelly Ortberg, Boeing's chief executive, said in a statement. Mr. Ortberg also said that he had spoken with N. Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Group, the conglomerate that owns Air India, and offered Boeing's support. The company said it had a team ready to help with the investigation, which is being led by India's aviation regulators. Plane crashes are typically caused by multiple factors that can include things like bird strikes, pilot error, manufacturing defects and inadequate maintenance. Early hypotheses are often ruled out during lengthy, technical crash investigations. The first Dreamliner was delivered in 2011 to All Nippon Airways, Japan's largest airline. There are more than 1,100 in service today, including nearly three dozen operated by Air India, according to Cirium, an aviation data firm. The plane involved in the crash on Thursday was delivered to Air India in January 2014 and had accumulated more than 41,000 flight hours, according to Cirium. The plane had taken off or landed nearly 8,000 times over its life, a typical amount for a Dreamliner of that age. Thursday's crash comes as Boeing is still dealing with repercussions from two deadly accidents involving its 737 Max plane in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. The company reached a deal with the Justice Department last month, which would spare Boeing from taking criminal responsibility for the crashes. Boeing has agreed to admit to obstructing federal oversight, pay a fine, contribute to a fund for the families of the victims and invest in safety and quality programs. The agreement, which requires the approval of a judge, was opposed by some of the families of crash victims. The airplane manufacturer has faced other prominent safety issues in recent years. In January 2024, a hole blew open on a new 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight, exposing passengers to forceful winds. Boeing told regulators last August that it would redesign the panels to better detect any malfunctions. That episode prompted widespread reforms at the company. Among them was an overhaul of senior management, including its chief executive, substantial changes in quality processes and procedures, increased regulatory scrutiny and Boeing's purchase of a major supplier of Max bodies. The Dreamliner has been the subject of quality concerns, too. Deliveries of the plane were paused for more than a year until the summer of 2022, when the Federal Aviation Administration approved a Boeing plan to make some fixes that included filling paper-thin gaps in the plane's body and replacing certain titanium parts that were made with the wrong material. Those problems had no immediate impact on the safety of Dreamliners, Boeing said at the time. Last year, the F.A.A. investigated claims by a Boeing engineer who claimed that the company had taken shortcuts around the time of the delivery pause in fitting together parts of the Dreamliner fuselage, or body. The whistle-blower, Sam Salehpour, said that the improper procedures could cause premature damage over years of use. Boeing disputed the claim, including at a briefing last year for reporters at the factory in North Charleston, S.C., where the Dreamliner has been assembled for years. Two top Boeing engineers said then that the company had found no evidence to support the whistle-blower's concerns after conducting exhaustive tests, inspections and analyses of the plane during its development and in recent years. One 787 airframe had been subjected to testing that put it through 165,000 'flight cycles,' the equivalent pressurization and depressurization of that many flights. That figure far exceeded the plane's expected useful life and the airframe still showed no signs of fatigue, Steve Chisholm, a vice president and the functional chief engineer for mechanical and structural engineering at Boeing, said at the briefing in South Carolina. Boeing also said then that nearly 700 Dreamliners had gone through thorough six-year maintenance checks, and eight had gone through 12-year checks. Mechanics found no signs of premature fatigue in those jets, either, according to the company. Other whistle-blowers have raised concerns about the South Carolina factory where the Dreamliner has been assembled for years. Among them was John Barnett, a former quality manager with almost three decades of experience at Boeing, who went public with his concerns about shoddy practices in 2019. Mr. Barnett killed himself last year after a yearslong legal battle with the company, which he accused of retaliating against him for raising his concerns. Last month, Boeing settled a lawsuit with Mr. Barnett's family concerning his death. But the Dreamliner involved in Thursday's crash predated those concerns: It was built years earlier in Seattle and delivered to Air India in 2014, according to Cirium. Mr. Ortberg, who took over as Boeing's chief executive last summer, described 2025 as 'our turnaround year' in a message to employees in April, when the company released better-than-expected quarterly financial results. At the time, the company said it had stabilized Dreamliner production at five planes per month, but planned to increase that to seven later in the year. The company's shares were down about 5 percent in midafternoon trading Thursday. Air India, one of the country's biggest carriers, had a cluster of dangerous incidents about 15 years ago. Before Thursday's crash, the airline's last fatal crash was in August 2020. The airline, which was taken over by the Tata Group in 2022 after decades of government ownership, has been working in recent years to improve its safety record and upgrade and expand its plane fleet. Alex Travelli and Pragati K.B. contributed reporting.

Associated Press
an hour ago
- Associated Press
Before crash, Air India spent years attempting a turnaround after emerging from government control
The deadly crash of an Air India flight carrying more than 240 people on Thursday arrives after years of efforts to turn around the country's flag carrier — which had been plagued by tragedy and financial losses under prior state ownership. In 2010, an Air India flight arriving from Dubai overshot the runway in the city of Mangalore and plunged over a cliff, killing 158 people out of the 166 on board. And in 2020, a flight for Air India Express, a subsidiary of Air India, skidded off a runway in Southern India during heavy rain and cracked in two — killing 18 people and injuring more than 120 others. Both of those incidents involved older Boeing 737-800 aircrafts — and occurred while Air India was still under governmental control. Indian conglomerate Tata Sons took over Air India in 2022, returning the carrier to private ownership after it was run by the state for decades. The 180 billion rupee (then worth $2.4 billion) deal was in some ways a homecoming for Air India, with roots that date back to the Tata family's founding of what was then-called Tata Airlines in 1932. It was also part of an wider effort to save the airline — which had become a money-losing, debt-saddled operation. Jitendra Bhargava, former executive director of the airline and author of 'The Descent of Air India,' said government ownership fostered an archaic work culture, outdated processes, and management by bureaucrats unfamiliar with the aviation industry. 'You are getting a recipe for disaster. And we went through it,' Bhargava told The Associated Press. As a result, he said, the company hemorrhaged money — which had a 'cascading effect' because it couldn't invest in upgrades. By the time of the Tata Sons takeover, Air India's market share was around 12% and at risk of shrinking as competitors expanded. Bhargava and other aviation experts stress that shedding government control was necessary for Air India to compete with other private rivals — and the carrier has since worked to reinvent itself by modernizing both its operations and fleet. Over recent years, Air India redesigned its branding and ordered hundreds of new planes from both Boeing and Airbus. Analysts don't expect Thursday's crash, which involved a 12-year-old Boeing 787 Dreamliner, to change such partnerships. 'Admittedly, Air India and the Tata organization have been very proud about the fact that they've made a major commitment to Boeing,' said Anita Mendiratta, an aviation and leadership consultant. While acknowledging that Boeing has been bruised in recent years, largely due to problems with its 737 Max, Mendiratta noted that there's still been a 'hunger' from airlines around the world to add the company's new planes to their fleets after recent delivery delays. That includes demand for the 787 Dreamliner — which, she said, is 'one of the most important aircraft when it comes to sustainable aviation, emissions reduction, managing the costs of aviation.' Boeing has been plagued by its own safety issues, including past deadly crashes. This, however, was the first crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. And the cause of Thursday's crash is still unclear. An international investigation is underway, and Boeing has said it's 'working to gather more information.' Air India said it's also working to get answers around what caused the crash — while promising to support those impacted by the tragedy. 'This is a difficult day for all of us at Air India,' CEO Campbell Wilson said in recorded remarks. 'Our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, their families and loved ones.' Natarajan Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, added in a statement that 'no words can adequately express the grief we feel at this moment.' He said that the company would provide 10 million rupees (nearly $116,795) to the families of each person 'who has lost their life in this tragedy' — and also cover medical expenses of anyone who was injured. The Boeing 787 crashed into a medical college after takeoff in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad. A single passenger survived the crash, according to a senior Indian official and Air India. But the airline said there were no other survivors — putting the latest death toll at 241. Beyond the fatal accidents in 2010 and 2020, an Air India Boeing 747 flight also crashed into the Arabian Sea in 1978, killing all 213 aboard. The carrier was under government control from 1953 through 2022. Other fatal accidents involving India's state-owned airlines include the more than 50 people who died in a crash in the eastern city of Patna in 2000. In 1993, a flight crashed in the western city Aurangabad, killing 55. In 1988, over 130 died when a plane crashed while landing in Ahmedabad and in 1991, a crash near northeastern city Imphal killed 69 people aboard. __________ Grantham-Philips reported from New York and Ghosal reported from Hanoi. AP Writer Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.