Latest news with #Flight587
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Yahoo
Kids of slain NYPD officer still fighting for death benefits 8 years later
THE BRONX (PIX11) — The city once vowed it would never forget the ultimate sacrifice of Miosotis Familia, but the slain NYPD officer's children say that promise has been broken. Eight years later, they're still fighting to receive their mother's death benefits. More Local News Genesis Villella has been walking past a portrait of her mother for the past eight years, and her murder still doesn't feel real. However, she vividly recalls a conversation they once had. 'She said, 'Genesis, if anything happens to me because of my job, I need you to take care of Peter and Delilah,'' Villella recalled. Three years later, in July 2017, NYPD Officer Miosotis Familia was executed in the line of duty. With Villella's father also deceased — tragically killed in the Flight 587 crash in Queens — she was left to raise her younger siblings. She adopted 12-year-old twins, Peter and Delilah. 'I was 21 years old, raising children on my own, and I was barely an adult,' she said. But after all these years, Villella is still fighting to obtain her mother's death benefits from her pension plan. 'It's an extremely complicated issue with a very simple solution,' she said. Street renamed for NYPD Detective Miosotis Familia, 1 year after line-of-duty death Villella aged out of the five-year window to receive her mother's pension. And as the legal guardian of the twins, they weren't eligible either. 'The people who were supposed to help me refused to help me,' she said. She has been urging the New York City Council to change a decades-old law that would help rectify her unique and painful situation. But she feels the city — including the police unions — has turned its back on her family. Recalling how, behind the scenes, they say, 'We're going to be there for you.' Now saying she's realized that promise was broken. In a statement, PBA President Pat Hendry told PIX11 News:'Elected leaders must work together to ensure they are caring for our fallen sister's children with the same commitment and compassion that she showed every day she wore the uniform.' Council Majority Leader Amanda Farías is standing in Villella's corner, working to do right by the children and potentially others in the future. 'We're trying to navigate at the state and city level to make sure we can legally pass something beneficial to her and her siblings,' Farías said. 'We're working on a time frame for age limits and what's allowable with the pension,' she added. More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State In a statement, Julia Agos, a spokesperson for Speaker Adrienne Adams, said:'The family of NYPD Detective Miosotis Familia should not have been forced to fight for the benefits they deserve from the sacrifice of her public service to the city. Speaker Adams and Council leaders are working collaboratively with state lawmakers and other stakeholders to advance a law in the coming weeks that resolves this issue for Detective Familia's family and prevents any other family from facing similar hardship.' If the City Council passes the bill, another hurdle remains: pension provisions are cemented at the state level. That's where Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz comes in. 'We're trying to make a change to the pension law…It's my intention we do the right thing for this family,' Dinowitz said. The city council has until June, the end of the NY legislative session, to approve the city law in order to proceed at the state level. 'My mom was a cop for 12 years — does that mean nothing?' Villella asked. 'I can't let her memory fade,' she said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Japan Times
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
From anguish to aggression: Trump goes on offense after midair collision
WASHINGTON – After TWA Flight 800 crashed in New York in 1996, U.S. President Bill Clinton asked "every American not to jump to conclusions' about what brought it down and declared it time "to pull together and work together.' Five years later, when American Airlines Flight 587 fell out of the sky, President George W. Bush predicted that the "resilient and strong and courageous people' of New York would get through the tragedy. In 2009, after a Colgan Air plane crashed near Buffalo, New York, President Barack Obama said that "tragic events such as these remind us of the fragility of life.' And then there was President Donald Trump. In the wake of this week's midair collision near Washington, Trump was more than happy to jump to conclusions and pull the country apart rather than together. After declaring it to be an "hour of anguish for our nation,' Trump just five minutes later let anguish give way to aggression as he blamed diversity policies promoted by Obama and former President Joe Biden for the crash, which killed 67 people.
New York Times
31-01-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
From Anguish to Aggression: Trump Goes on Offense After Midair Collision
After TWA Flight 800 crashed in New York in 1996, President Bill Clinton asked 'every American not to jump to conclusions' about what brought it down and declared it time 'to pull together and work together.' Five years later, when American Airlines Flight 587 fell out of the sky, President George W. Bush predicted that the 'resilient and strong and courageous people' of New York would get through the tragedy. In 2009, after a Colgan Air plane crashed near Buffalo, President Barack Obama said that 'tragic events such as these remind us of the fragility of life.' And then there was President Trump. In the wake of this week's midair collision near Washington, Mr. Trump was more than happy to jump to conclusions and pull the country apart rather than together. After declaring it to be an 'hour of anguish for our nation,' Mr. Trump just five minutes later let anguish give way to aggression as he blamed diversity policies promoted by Mr. Obama and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for the crash, which killed 67 people. Mr. Trump has never been like other presidents. He does not follow many of the rituals and traditions of his office. He practices the politics of division rather than unity. Where past presidents have sought to project a comforting, paternal presence for a stricken nation in moments of crisis, Mr. Trump's instinct is to move quickly from grief to grievance. He has long demonstrated that he is more comfortable as the blamer in chief than consoler in chief. His decision to use the bully pulpit of the White House on Thursday to assign responsibility for the crash to his political rivals by name without offering a shred of evidence was, even for Mr. Trump, a striking performance. And it was no off-the-cuff comment. He followed up by signing an order directing a review of 'problematic and likely illegal decisions' by Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden. 'I put safety first,' Mr. Trump told reporters in his first visit to the briefing room of his second term. 'Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first. And they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse.' The Democratic presidents, he said, made 'a big push to put diversity into the F.A.A.'s program,' leading to Wednesday night's disaster over the Potomac River. Never mind that the 'problematic' hiring policy language he read had also been in place during his own administration and that he could not say whether it had any connection to the crash. It was not the first time Mr. Trump has exhibited what even his own former aides have called an 'empathy gap.' Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, with thousands of Americans dying every day at its peak, Mr. Trump rarely paused long enough to dwell on the human toll and never sponsored any memorial to the fallen. Instead, he focused his public messages on finding others to fault, whether it be China, Mr. Obama, Democratic governors, the World Health Organization, federal regulators or his own scientific advisers. He has responded similarly to natural disasters by going on the attack. Just this month, Mr. Trump reacted to the devastating wildfires in greater Los Angeles by blasting Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, calling him 'Newscum.' After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, he engaged in a war of words with San Juan's mayor and, when he finally visited the island, memorably tossed paper towels to people who had been left without food, water or power. Angry at criticism of his handling of the calamity, he later suggested to aides that the United States sell or trade away Puerto Rico. 'Trump doesn't lead with empathy,' said Olivia Troye, who served on the White House Covid task force staff before later publicly criticizing the president's management of the pandemic. 'He exploits tragedy for whatever political grievance he's peddling at the moment, never offering the comfort or stability a president should.' The exception has been if the victims of a tragedy buttress a political argument he has been making. At a ceremony this week to sign a bill cracking down on unauthorized immigrants charged with certain crimes, he expressed compassion for relatives of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student killed last year by a migrant from Venezuela who had crossed into the United States illegally. Mr. Trump often moves to place any crisis into his own political or ideological narrative, regardless of the facts. He tied the California fires to wrongheaded environmental and water policies, assertions that experts disputed. After the New Year's Day terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Mr. Trump blamed immigration, even though the attacker was a U.S. citizen born in Texas. This week, after American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over Reagan National Airport, Mr. Trump went straight to diversity policies, with no evident basis. The problem, he said, was that candidates for air traffic controller jobs were rejected because the work force was 'too white' while people with serious mental or physical disabilities were hired. In addition to Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden, two of Mr. Trump's longtime favorite targets, the president singled out Pete Buttigieg, who served as Mr. Biden's transportation secretary, saying that 'he's a disaster.' Mr. Buttigieg, as it happens, is considered a possible Democratic candidate for president in 2028. Mr. Trump's instant focus on diversity programs generated outrage among Democrats. 'Listen, it's one thing for internet pundits to spew off conspiracies,' Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor not long afterward. 'It's another for the president of the United States to throw out idle speculation as bodies are still being recovered and families are still being notified. It just turns your stomach.' Mr. Buttigieg pushed back on social media. 'Despicable,' he wrote. 'As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch.' Mr. Buttigieg and other Democrats pointed out that Mr. Trump had just fired the members of an aviation security advisory group, although there was no indication that the move had contributed to this week's crash. 'Time for the president to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again,' Mr. Buttigieg wrote. In this opening chapter of his return to power, Mr. Trump seems fixated on diversity programs more than ever. Other than immigration, he has made it perhaps the central villain of his second term. Among his first acts was to order the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs throughout the federal government and a review of federal grants and loans to weed out any that promote diversity. Recognizing the writing on the wall, many states, localities, universities and private companies are now scrapping their diversity programs, either to curry favor with the new administration or to preserve their federal financing. Mr. Trump and his allies have successfully made the acronym D.E.I. politically radioactive. As with so much else in this Trump 2.0 era, the road to Mr. Trump's broadsides against the Federal Aviation Administration's leadership and policies may lead back to Elon Musk, the president's billionaire patron who has been given wide latitude to restructure government in the new administration. Mr. Musk has long quarreled with the F.A.A., which has hit his SpaceX rocket company with fines for safety lapses and sought to delay a launch. Last fall, he called for 'radical reform at the F.A.A.' and a week later he reposted a picture of Michael Whitaker, the agency administrator, with the caption, 'He needs to resign.' Mr. Whitaker did just that the day Mr. Trump took office last week, and the new president appointed an acting successor on Thursday. While Mr. Trump said there would be a 'systemic and comprehensive investigation' of this week's crash, he did not wait to offer the conclusions of his own rather less methodical inquiry. He went on at some length about F.A.A. diversity policies that encourage the hiring of people with severe disabilities, the same ones in place when he was in office last time. What he could not say was whether any people with severe disabilities were actually hired as air traffic controllers as opposed to for other jobs compatible with their abilities. Nor could he say whether anyone on duty on Wednesday night fit that category. Indeed, he acknowledged that there were many unanswered questions. 'We don't know that that would have been the difference,' he said of helicopter pilots not following instructions. He said he did not know whether another plane might have blocked the pilots' view. He said he did not know why adjustments were not made when the two aircraft hurtled toward each other. He said he did not know if the helicopter pilots were wearing night-vision goggles. 'We don't know that necessarily it's even the controller's fault,' he said at another point. But just because he did not know all those things did not mean he was not certain who was to blame. No need to wait for the investigation to reach that conclusion.
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- General
- Yahoo
American Airlines crash in Washington, D.C., may be carrier's worst disaster in two decades
An American Airlines commuter jet with 64 people aboard collided with a military helicopter Wednesday evening during a landing approach in Washington, D.C., causing both aircraft to crash into the frigid Potomac River in what will likely to be the worst U.S. commercial aviation disaster in years. Flight 5342, operated by PSA Airlines from Wichita, Kansas, to Reagan Washington National Airport, collided with an Army Blackhawk helicopter at 8:48 p.m. ET. American Airlines said the CRJ-700 Bombardier was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members; the chopper was a training flight with three soldiers aboard. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said during a 1 a.m. press conference that no information was available about casualties. Searches through the partially submerged wreckage continued overnight; conditions in the Potomac were brutal with water temperatures in the 30s. PSA Airlines, based in Dayton, Ohio, is a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines Group. It is not the former discount carrier Pacific Southwest Airlines, which ceased operations in 1988, but is the same trademarked brand that American owns. American CEO Robert Isom said in a video statement he would be heading to Washington on Wednesday night. 'We're cooperating fully with the National Transportation Safety Board and its investigation, and will continue to provide all the information we can. Our cooperation is without pause, and we want to learn everything we can about today's events. That work will take time.' The Fort Worth-based airline said anyone who thinks they may have a loved one on board can call 800-679-8215. The U.S. hasn't seen a commercial airline disaster in 15 years. It has been even longer since a major crash involving American Airlines, the nation's largest carrier. In November 2001, American Flight 587 crashed after takeoff from JFK Airport in New York City, killing all 260 people on board. The Airbus A300 bound for Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, encountered wake turbulence from a larger Boeing 747 aircraft that took off ahead of it. The disaster happened two months after the 9/11 attacks, which involved two hijacked American Airlines jets: Flight 11, which hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon. The worst aviation accident ever in the United States was American Airlines Flight 191, which in May 1979 lost an engine during takeoff at Chicago O'Hare International Airport and crashed moments later, killing 258 passengers and 13 crew, in addition to two people on the ground. Investigators determined that improper maintenance procedures weakened the engine's connection to the wing. As the Los Angeles-bound plane sped down the runway, an engine separated and flipped over the wing, disabling crucial operating systems. Wednesday's crash in the ice-cold Potomac River is reminiscent of the Jan. 13, 1982, crash of Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737 taking off during a blizzard. Ice build-up on the plane caused it to crash into the frozen river after it struck Washington's 14th Street bridge. Of 79 passengers and crew, five were rescued. That disaster is remembered for the heroic action of federal worker Lenny Skutnik, a bystander who watched a helicopter's futile effort to pull survivors from the river. He jumped into the river, swam to a victim who was about to drown, and pulled her to shore. President Ronald Reagan invited him to the State of the Union days later, which started the tradition of featuring heroes in the House gallery. Today, American Airlines has an active fleet of about 140 regional CRJ-700 aircraft, which seats 65 passengers. The planes are manufactured by the Canadian company Bombardier Aviation. The union representing flight attendants issued a statement late Wednesday: 'Our union is responding to the tragic midair collision of PSA Flight 5342 with a military helicopter. Two AFA Flight Attendants were crewing the flight. While we mobilize to support the families and crews directly affected by this incident, we are also sending strength to all first responders doing everything they can to bring survivors to safety. 'We ask the public to keep the families in your thoughts and respect efforts to get information to loved ones first as everyone clings to hope for survivors. Please avoid speculation at any time. American Airlines, with its American Eagle regional partners, operates thousands of flights a day to more than 350 cities in 60 countries. Dallas-Fort Worth is a major hub for the carrier. Wednesday's incident was the first significant fatal crash of a commercial airline in the United States since Feb. 12, 2009, when Colgan Flight 3407 went down near Buffalo, New York, killing 49 on board and one on the ground. Investigators found that pilot fatigue during icing conditions contributed to the accident. This is a developing story.
