Federal Aviation Administration/Airlines&Airplanes

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Broken altimeter, ignored warnings: Hearings reveal what went wrong in DC crash that killed 67

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.

https://apnews.com/article/ntsb-dc-plane-crash-midair-collision-helicopter-a08cded88e1d7582fb8d242204d6aeff?

[Asia Joe]

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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.

This was the cause of the accident. 

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they did and asked for visual separation approval

The Helo pilot was a woman, and it was her decision to ask for visual separation.  That is the cause of the accident. No responsible pilot would ask for that under those nighttime conditions. 

And of course they never saw the plane until it was too late. 

The co-pilot even tried to warn her to fly further out. 

DEI killed those people. But that will never be in the report. 

Thousands of Helos fly that route every month without crashing into a plane. 

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Spirit Airlines sounds the alarm on its future ability to stay in business

Just months after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Spirit Airlines is warning about its future ability to stay in business. Spirit Aviation Holdings, the budget carrier’s parent company, says it has “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a going concern within the next year. Read More.

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High-fare air

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Airline ticket prices are sky-high right now, and it's making it harder for people to find cost-saving seats, Axios' Herb Scribner writes. Airfares are up 4% on average in July compared to June — and higher than prices last July, The Wall Street Journal reports (gift link), citing adjusted federal data. It's the first increase in the category since January. ? The bump is good news all around for airlines. Stocks are up, gasoline costs are down and flights are, well, pricier. Travel demand is also up, and there's been a recent increase in bookings across U.S. airports. Airlines are shrinking their schedules to increase demand and "claw back pricing power," WSJ reports. ? Flashback: There was concern about how 2025 would shape out for airlines due to President Trump's tariffs and shifting economic policies. That's why airlines cut prices and tried to hook flyers for the summer, according to CNBC. Yes, but: Airline experts expect some turbulence in demand after the summer, and airlines will have to tweak prices again. There's already been some concern about how August will shake out since so many people moved their travel dates into early summer months, CNBC reports. Several carriers are forecasting a flat end to 2025, with smaller airlines saying "there's still too much uncertainty surrounding demand for the rest of the year," Bloomberg reported.

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Passengers sue United and Delta for selling ‘window’ seats next to blank walls

NEW YORK (AP) — A pair of federal lawsuits filed in San Francisco and New York this week accuse Delta Air Lines and United Airlines of misleading passengers by charging premium fees for window seats next to blank walls.

https://apnews.com/article/window-seats-lawsuit-airlines-delta-united-d770cfe427a9e5a29330b1a18938c7c7?

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Spirit Airlines files for bankruptcy again but vows to keep flying

Budget carrier Spirit Airlines said Friday that it has filed for fresh bankruptcy protection months after emerging from a Chapter 11 reorganization.

https://apnews.com/article/spirit-airlines-bankruptcy-chapter-11-ac236c907b659b68fa35480eb429626f?

Delta agrees to pay $79M to settle lawsuit after jetliner dumped fuel on schools

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Delta Air Lines has agreed to pay $79 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 after one of its airplanes that was experiencing engine trouble dumped its fuel over schoolyards and densely populated neighborhoods near Los Angeles.

https://apnews.com/article/delta-fuel-dump-schools-lawsuit-settlement-004e812bf2acef3ceac148ab3c99ae09?

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Aviation safety

Fewer meteorologists are working with air traffic controllers due to burnout, fatigue and low morale, as well as other factors, including the Trump administration’s hiring freeze and deferred resignations, a new report said. National Weather Service meteorologists support air traffic command centers and air route control centers by providing updates about weather events that could impact operations and safety. Currently, only eight of the country’s 21 “weather service units” are fully staffed with four meteorologists. Oakland, California; Boston; Washington, DC and Jacksonville, Florida, have two or fewer meteorologists on staff. As of June, five of these units were also missing a local meteorologist-in-charge. According to the Government Accountability Office, urgent actions are needed to address these staffing issues.

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Cockpit recorders studied in ‘low-speed collision’ of Delta jets on LaGuardia taxiway

Two Delta Air Lines regional jets collided on the taxiway at LaGuardia Airport in New York, injuring a flight attendant, damaging a cockpit and tearing off part of a wing in what the airline described as a “low-speed collision.”

https://apnews.com/article/delta-planes-collision-new-york-laguardia-6ccff3aabeca787c31f1f6746ad771fd?

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Aviation safety

As the US government shutdown drags on, more air traffic controllers who are working without pay are missing shifts or taking on side jobs to make ends meet. This has raised concerns among some travelers about whether it's safe to fly during the government shutdown, with aviation workers facing stress that could potentially affect their job performance. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said some delays at US airports are intentional to give controllers on duty more time to manage flights safely. Several aviation experts tell CNN that passenger safety is not being compromised, but travelers should plan for long waits — sometimes several hours. In recent days, staffing shortages and delays have been widespread in Chicago, Denver, Houston and Newark.   At least 3 dead, 11 injured in UPS plane crash in Kentucky and governor says numbers likely to grow LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A UPS cargo plane crashed and exploded Tuesday while taking off from an airport in Louisville, Kentucky, killing at least three people and injuring 11 more, the state’s governor said. https://apnews.com/article/kentucky-louisville-plane-crash-report-71dd124d1971a22f122590e72cc2c73a?

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FAA reducing air traffic by 10% across 40 ‘high-volume’ markets during government shutdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that it was taking the extraordinary step of reducing air traffic by 10% across 40 “high-volume” markets beginning Friday morning to maintain travel safety as air traffic controllers exhibit signs of strain during the ongoing government shutdown.

https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-airlines-faa-e39c423facec2b0dcc2544af48de0fa1?

Aging airplanes

The UPS plane that crashed shortly after takeoff in Louisville, Kentucky, was 34 years old. While that’s old for a passenger jet, it’s not so unusual in the world of air cargo. Investigators said they have recovered the “black boxes.”

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US flight cancellations accelerate as airlines comply with government shutdown order

U.S. airlines began canceling hundreds of flights Thursday due to the Federal Aviation Administration’s order to reduce traffic at the country’s busiest airports starting Friday because of the government shutdown.

https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-reduced-flights-a082a6817d960101968a923f7dfd8ef0?

Travelers brace for chaos as US government shutdown threatens holiday flights

Travelers braced for canceled flights, scrambled plans and holidays stranded in airports as a U.S. government shutdown threatened to snarl trips across the country. News that the Federal Aviation Administration will reduce air traffic at 40 airports beginning Friday set off a flurry of worry among those planning trips. Affected airports include Atlanta, New York, Houston, Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Orlando, Miami, and San Francisco.  Read more.

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US flight cancellations accelerate as airlines comply with government shutdown order

U.S. airlines began canceling hundreds of flights Thursday due to the Federal Aviation Administration’s order to reduce traffic at the country’s busiest airports starting Friday because of the government shutdown.

https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-reduced-flights-a082a6817d960101968a923f7dfd8ef0?

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✈️ Mapped: Shutdown travel chaos

Map: Axios Visuals More than 800 flights were canceled for today after the FAA ordered airlines to start scaling back traffic at 40 of the nation's busiest airports (mapped above), according to flight tracking website FlightAware. A 4% reduction in operations is taking effect today to help address a shortage of air traffic controllers during the shutdown, Axios' Julianna Bragg and Avery Lotz write. That will ramp up to 6% by Tuesday, 8% by Nov. 13 and 10% by Nov. 14, the FAA says. Full list of airports.

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Passengers start to feel bite of flight cuts amid US government shutdown

A US government order to make drastic cuts in commercial air traffic amid the government shutdown has taken effect, with major airports across the country experiencing a significant reduction in schedules and leaving travellers scrambling to adjust their plans.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/07/passengers-face-global-disruption-as-flights-cut-amid-us-government-shutdown?

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✈️ Flights still a mess

A sign displaying "Will Vector for Food" is displayed on the control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport today. Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images Flight cancellations will get worse before they get better, even with an end to the shutdown in sight. Airlines cut another 1,700 flights today and nearly 1,000 for Tuesday. ?It's not yet clear when air traffic controllers will start getting paid again. Some controllers won't be able to return to work until that happens — and some have simply quit as the shutdown stretched on. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport saw delays as long as four hours today, and airports across the country are still struggling to keep up. Go deeper.

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The Return-to-Normal Problem (Michael Yanow / Nurphoto / Getty)

View in browser This past weekend, as I prepared to board a flight from Toronto to New York City, I looked down at my phone to find two pieces of news. One was that the Senate was readying a deal to end the ongoing government shutdown. The other was that my flight was delayed. I was lucky. Amid the broader chaos enveloping air travel in the United States these days, a delay of a couple of hours is manageable. Air traffic controllers have now gone without pay for 43 days, leading some to reportedly take a second job when they’re off the clock; to account for  fatigue and compensate for the controllers who have left their job, the Federal Aviation Administration has deployed an emergency order mandating major reductions in daily domestic flights at 40 high-traffic airports. What began as a 4 percent reduction over the weekend is now a 6 percent reduction. Thousands of flights have been outright canceled. All government shutdowns produce a sort of hangover period once they end, as federal employees return from furlough and attempt to triage their accumulated work. This shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, is no different. Now that the House has passed legislation to end it, certain services will return immediately—some national parks, for example, have remained open at limited capacity throughout the shutdown in spite of staffing shortages. But flights in particular won’t be running smoothly for a while. “I’m hoping that if we get this shutdown resolved this week that the airlines and the FAA can get back to normal in time for the start of the Thanksgiving travel period,” Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research Group told me yesterday. So far, the FAA’s emergency order remains in place, and there’s no guarantee that it will be lifted at the precise moment that the shutdown comes to an end. Even once airlines are operating at full capacity, they will need to pull off the complicated logistical project of repositioning crews and planes across the country. There’s also the question of back pay. The federal government is required, per a 2019 law called the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, to send out paychecks at “the earliest date possible” after a shutdown ends, regardless of regular pay schedules. But even after employees receive their paychecks, it can take a while for their financial situation to return to normal. Some of this has to do with new burdens that workers take on during shutdowns, such as managing their kids’ child care, Rachel Snyderman, the managing director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told me. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said yesterday afternoon that air traffic controllers will receive 70 percent of their pay within 48 hours of the government reopening, and that he expects the rest to come within a week. Duffy also echoed Donald Trump’s exhortation that workers continue to work without pay. For these true “PATRIOTS,” the president wrote on Truth Social, “I won’t be able to send your money fast enough!” Trump added that those who don’t show up to work risk having their pay “substantially docked,” in apparent contravention of federal law. The shutdown’s effects are rippling throughout much of the country’s fundamental infrastructure. Because some cargo planes have been grounded, packages have experienced delays too. SNAP benefits, which the Trump administration said it would fund only in part this month, could be retroactively paid “upon the availability of federal funding,” according to an October memo from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, although there is no clear timeline for that disbursement. There is no timeline yet either for the many blue-state infrastructure projects that were canceled or put on hold by the Office of Management and Budget during the shutdown (clean-energy groups have teamed up with the city of St. Paul to sue the government over funding cuts to energy programs; the OMB did not respond to a request for comment). And anything that needs an application or an approval from the federal government—say, housing developments involving government-backed loans, or payments for fuel deliveries as part of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which subsidizes heating bills and other weather-related expenses—will likely take some time to ramp back up. In Pennsylvania, LIHEAP won’t reopen until early next month. In New York State, applications for those heating subsidies will not be accepted until November 24 at the earliest. And it’s already snowing. “Let’s get the job done, and let’s do it fast,” Senator Susan Collins said on Sunday of the shutdown’s prospective end. But despite the rhetorical victory lap from congressional Republicans about having bested their Democrat rivals, there is a bipartisan reality to the shutdown’s aftereffects. Voters in all states, of both parties, rely on the services that will soon creak back to life. Plus, the resolution that the House voted on this evening funds the government only through January. Air traffic controllers might need to hang on to those second jobs. Related: Why the Democrats finally folded The moral cost of the Democrats’ shutdown strategy

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UPS plane crash

Authorities have identified all 14 victims from the fiery UPS cargo plane crash last week in Louisville, Kentucky. Their names were released on Wednesday as Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg lamented the lives that will "forever be unfinished." Among the victims were three pilots on board when the crash happened during takeoff at UPS Worldport, the company's global aviation hub located at Muhammad Ali International Airport. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board remain at the crash site as they work to determine the cause of the devastating accident.

[Asia Joe]

Is it just me, or does it seem like there are far more airplane crashes, near misses this year. 

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Flight cuts

A 6% reduction in flights at 40 major US airports is still in place — despite the federal government reopening. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has emphasized that the FAA will only bring back full flight capacity when it is safe to do so and when more controllers return to work. More than 1,000 flights nationwide on Thursday were canceled and more than 3,500 were delayed, according to data from FlightAware. Some airlines have told CNN that they anticipate more disruptions in the coming hours, meaning travelers should plan for potential schedule changes and crowded terminals. Notably, Fridays and Saturdays have seen the most staffing problems throughout this time, according to data viewed by CNN.

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FAA lifts order slashing flights, allowing commercial airlines to resume their regular schedules

The Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday it is lifting all restrictions on commercial flights that were imposed at 40 major airports during the country’s longest government shutdown.

https://apnews.com/article/shutdown-flight-cuts-travel-restrictions-faa-a815668eb562513f60d4115b5d695c73?

FAA ends emergency order mandating flight reductions at 40 airports during government shutdown, officials say

Flight reductions at 40 airports mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this month are set to come to end tomorrow morning, according to a joint statement from United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/16/us/faa-ends-shutdown-flight-cuts?

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FAA lifts order slashing flights, allowing commercial airlines to resume their regular schedules The Federal Aviation Administration said Sunday it is lifting all restrictions on commercial flights that were imposed at 40 major airports during the country’s longest government shutdown. Read more.

What to know: Airline leaders have expressed optimism that operations will rebound in time for the Thanksgiving travel period after the FAA lifted its order.   Citing safety concerns as staffing shortages grew at air traffic control facilities during the shutdown, the FAA issued an unprecedented order to limit traffic in the skies. It had been in place since Nov. 7, affecting thousands of flights across the country.   Air traffic controllers were among the federal employees who had to continue working without pay throughout the shutdown. They missed two paychecks during the impasse.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ How the shutdown and economic issues helped drive Democratic wins in Virginia and New Jersey   Court-appointed lawyers and their clients face fallout from government shutdown and funding crisis

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Fleet of UPS planes grounded after deadly crash expected to miss peak delivery season

A fleet of planes that UPS grounded after a deadly crash isn’t expected to be back in service during the peak holiday season due to inspections and possible repairs, the company said this week in an internal memo. A fiery MD-11 plane crash on Nov. 4 in Louisville, Kentucky, killed 14 people and injured at least 23 when the left engine detached during takeoff. Read more.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤

Winter storm warnings stretch across the northern US, bringing snow, cold and risky conditions Photos capture enduring enthusiasm for Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year Sellers in other countries struggle to maintain US customers as holiday shopping season starts

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American Airlines tightens frequent flyer perks on basic economy tickets

Travelers who booked American Airlines basic economy tickets on or after Dec. 17 at 12am CT will no longer earn AAdvantage miles or Loyalty Points, according to the airline's website.

https://www.axios.com/local/charlotte/2025/12/19/american-airlines-basic-economy-aadvantage-miles-perks?

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Midair helicopter crash in New Jersey leaves 1 dead and another critically injured

HAMMONTON, N.J. (AP) — Two helicopters crashed midair in New Jersey on Sunday, killing one person and critically injuring another, authorities say.

https://apnews.com/article/hammonton-new-jersey-helicopter-crash-68717ae773636de9142e03e8b5dbd6f1?

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Pentagon let CBP use anti-drone laser before FAA closed El Paso airspace, AP sources say

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The Pentagon allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser earlier this week, leading the Federal Aviation Administration to suddenly close the airspace over El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

https://apnews.com/article/faa-el-paso-texas-air-space-closed-1f774bdfd46f5986ff0e7003df709caa?