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    Army Report Links Pentagon Equipment Glitch to Aborted Landings at D.C. Airport

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    The diversion of two commercial flights on May 1 has raised new questions about equipment and safety in some of Washington’s busiest airspace.Two commercial flights were diverted from Ronald Reagan National Airport on May 1 in part because of a communications glitch between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and Pentagon air traffic controllers, according to an Army official who was briefed on an internal review of the matter.The Black Hawk helicopter had tried to land on the helipad near the Pentagon but was asked to fly around and land a short while later, according to an Army statement issued Friday. That request, which came from air traffic controllers at the Pentagon, arose from a short period in which the controllers lost audio and visual contact with the helicopter just moments before it was set to land, the official said.The helicopter “initiated a go-around due to a delay in clearance from the Pentagon Tower,” the Army wrote in its statement. The Associated Press earlier reported details of the Army review.The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are also investigating the event and declined to comment.The May 1 episode, which included the aborted landings of a Delta Air Lines flight and a Republic Airways flight, has been under unusual scrutiny because of the recent spate of problems in U.S. aviation.In January, a midair collision near National Airport between a different Army Black Hawk helicopter and a commercial flight from Wichita, Kan., killed 67 people. And in recent weeks, air traffic control centers from Philadelphia to the Denver area have been affected by equipment outages that have frightened controllers, raising concerns about air safety.The F.A.A. oversees the National Airport air traffic control tower and has been working to address the equipment and staffing troubles. At a Senate hearing last week, Franklin McIntosh, then the deputy chief operating officer of the F.A.A., said that his agency had not known until the May 1 episode that a hotline linking the Pentagon’s controllers to their counterparts at the National Airport tower had been inoperable for three years. In the meantime, the two entities were communicating over a landline, officials have said.“We were extremely troubled by the incident that occurred,” Mr. McIntosh said, adding that the Defense Department had suspended certain operations in the National Airport airspace afterward. A repaired hotline would be necessary in order for the flights to resume, the F.A.A. official added.The aviation agency recently restricted a particularly treacherous helicopter flight route in the National Airport vicinity and mandated that Army flights operate with a location broadcasting system called ADS-B Out. The Army said on Friday that the Black Hawk in the May 1 episode was using ADS-B Out at the time and that it was also flying on an approved route.The Army also said in its statement that one of the commercial flights was diverted because of a problem with National Airport controllers’ “sequencing” of air traffic. The second diversion request stemmed from conflicting aircraft location data, the statement added, without providing details. More

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      Audio Data Shows Newark Outage Problems Persisted Longer Than Officials Said

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      <!–> [–><!–>On April 28, controllers at a Philadelphia facility managing air traffic for Newark Liberty International Airport and smaller regional airports in New Jersey suddenly lost radar and radio contact with planes in one of the busiest airspaces in the country.–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>On Monday, two weeks after the episode, Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, […] More

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      How Lost Radar and Silent Radios Have Upended Newark Air Travel

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      On a recent afternoon in Philadelphia, an air traffic controller began shouting that he had lost his radar feed for planes flying in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport.Some of his colleagues still had radar but their radios went dead, prompting frantic calls to their counterparts in New York urging them to keep their planes away from Newark’s airspace.Then, for 30 harrowing seconds until the radios came back, there was nothing more to do but hope — as they had no means of telling pilots how to avoid crashing their planes into one another.Shortly after that, one controller discovered a trainee, who had been directing Newark traffic under supervision just moments earlier, shaking in the hallway.That was the chaotic scene on Monday, April 28, according to several people who were present when controllers working the airspace for Newark lost the means to do their jobs.The failure of the system the controllers rely on left several of those on duty that day with extreme anxiety, requiring a mental health respite that has caused low staffing levels for days since. It has also prompted more than 1,000 flights at one of the nation’s busiest airports to be canceled or delayed, leaving some passengers feeling frustrated and abandoned.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Small Plane Crashes Into Simi Valley, Calif., Homes, Killing Pilot

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      Residents were in the two homes that were struck, but they were evacuated without injuries, the Ventura County Fire Department said.A small plane crashed into two homes in Simi Valley, Calif., on Saturday, killing the pilot, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Ventura County Fire Department.Residents were inside the two-story, single-family homes, and were evacuated without any injuries, the fire department said. The homes suffered structural damage and fire damage.The identity of the pilot was not released.Video posted on social media by the fire department showed firefighters on a roof tending to a smoking area of one of the houses.The plane, a single engine fixed-wing Van’s Aircraft RV-10, had departed from General William J. Fox Airfield in Lancaster and was heading to Camarillo Airport near the city of Thousand Oaks before it crashed around 2:10 p.m., the F.A.A. said.Simi Valley is a city of 125,000 people about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.Photos from the scene showed smoke billowing shortly after the crash and, later, a gaping hole in the roof of a structure.“The plane was flying very low and attempted to gain altitude a couple of times but looked like it could not,” an X user, who posted a photo after the crash, said on social media. More

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      2 Planes Abort Landings as Army Helicopter Flies Near D.C. Airport

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      The episode followed a fatal collision between a military helicopter and a commercial jet in January, and prompted concern and outrage among officials.Federal transportation safety officials were investigating on Friday after two commercial flights aborted landings because an Army helicopter had entered the airspace around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where helicopter traffic has been restricted since a fatal collision in January.Air traffic controllers instructed Delta Air Lines Flight 1671 and Republic Airways Flight 5825 to abort their landings around 2:30 p.m. Thursday because of the helicopter’s presence, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which has begun an investigation along with the National Transportation Safety Board.The helicopter was a Black Hawk headed to the nearby Pentagon, the safety board said.Both planes later landed safely, but the episode prompted outrage among officials in Washington.“Our helicopter restrictions around DCA are crystal clear,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a social media post, using the airport’s code. He said he would speak to the Defense Department about “why the hell our rules were disregarded.”The Army said in a brief statement that the helicopter had been “directed by Pentagon air traffic control to conduct a ‘go-around,’ overflying the Pentagon helipad in accordance with approved flight procedures,” as it headed to the Pentagon.“The incident is currently under investigation,” the Army said. “The United States Army remains committed to aviation safety and conducting flight operations within all approved guidelines and procedures.”The F.A.A. had restricted nonessential helicopter traffic around the airport, which is just miles from the Capitol and the White House, after a Jan. 29 midair collision between an American Airlines flight and Army Black Hawk helicopter killed 67 people.The episode on Thursday also renewed concerns by lawmakers, many of whom use the airport.Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who leads the Senate’s committee that handles transportation, said the incident underscored continuing risks posed by military flights near the airport and called for legislation to improve civilian air safety.“Just days after military flights resumed in the National Capital Region, the Army is once again putting the traveling public at risk,” Mr. Cruz said on social media. “Thank God there was a decisive response from air traffic controllers and pilots, or else these two close calls could have resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives.”Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, the committee’s top Democrat, criticized the military flight’s proximity to commercial traffic.She called it “far past time” for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the F.A.A. “to give our airspace the security and safety attention it deserves.” More

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      Newark Airport Is Experiencing Major Flight Delays. What’s Causing Them?

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      Staffing shortages at an air traffic control center have added to the effects of a runway closure, prompting United Airlines to cut flights at the hub.Flying into or out of Newark Liberty International Airport has brought plenty of misery in the last week, with cancellations, delays stretching well past five hours and flight diversions that have stranded travelers far from their destinations.Passengers are reporting on social media that they have missed flights and spent hours stuck on the tarmac aboard planes. Some are still struggling to make new travel arrangements.The disruptions, which stretched into Friday with delays averaging over two hours, have highlighted ongoing air traffic control staffing issues. The troubles prompted United Airlines, Newark’s largest carrier, to cut nearly three dozen round-trip flights per day at the hub beginning this weekend, the carrier’s chief executive, Scott Kirby, announced on Friday.Here’s what anyone heading to Newark Airport needs to know.Air traffic control staffing is limiting capacityLast summer, management of the airspace surrounding Newark shifted from New York to Philadelphia. This move, which involved relocating at least a dozen air traffic controllers, was meant to ease air traffic delays.The Federal Aviation Administration has attributed this week’s flight disruptions at Newark to equipment failures and unspecified staffing issues at the Philadelphia air traffic control center as well as to construction on one of Newark’s runways.These ongoing staffing issues are “effectively limiting the capacity of Newark Airport,” said Aidan O’Donnell, the general manager of New Jersey airports at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Small Plane With 4 Aboard Crashes in Illinois

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      The authorities said they were conducting a “fatal aircraft investigation” but did not provide details about the number of people who died.A small plane with four people on board crashed in a field beside a roadway in rural Illinois on Saturday morning, officials said.The authorities did not say how many people died in the crash, but the Illinois State Police said that it was “an active and ongoing fatal aircraft investigation.”The plane crashed around 10:15 a.m. in Trilla, which is about 65 miles south of Champaign. Airplane debris was scattered on the roadway, which was closed several hours after the crash, the State Police said.The plane, a single-engine Cessna 180, crashed about a dozen miles from Coles County Memorial Airport in Mattoon, Ill., the Federal Aviation Administration said.The F.A.A. and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating. It was unknown whether anyone on the ground was injured.“We keep those impacted by the plane crash in our thoughts today,” Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois said on social media. “Thank you to the first responders who rushed to the scene.”In the last week, small plane crashes have killed at least nine people.On Friday night, a small plane crashed into a river in eastern Nebraska, killing three people on board, officials said. On April 12, a small twin-engine plane crashed in a muddy field in New York, killing all six people on board.Flying remains the safest mode of transportation, experts say, but an unusual spate of crashes involving commercial airliners at the start of the year has raised travelers’ anxieties about flying. More

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      At Least One Dead After Private Plane Crashes in Upstate New York

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      The plane, a Mitsubishi MU-2B carrying two passengers, went down Saturday in the town of Copake close to the Massachusetts border, according to the authorities.A plane crashed in a field on Saturday near the town of Copake, N.Y., leaving at least one dead, according to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office.The plane, a Mitsubishi MU-2B bound for Columbia County Airport near Hudson, N.Y., was carrying two passengers and crashed a little after noon, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.The aircraft went down near Two Town Road and did not damage any structures, Undersheriff Jacqueline Salvatore told reporters at a news conference on Saturday afternoon. Ms. Salvatore did not say how many people had been killed or if there were any survivors. The two passengers have not been identified.A private plane of the same model departed Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., shortly after 11:30 a.m., flying north toward Hudson before turning east at about noon, according to the tracking site Flightradar24. Minutes later, the craft disappeared from the site near Copake, a small town bordering Taconic State Park near the Massachusetts border.That plane was registered to a company based outside Boston, according to F.A.A. records.Ms. Salvatore said that, in addition to officers from the sheriff’s department, personnel from the New York State Police and a local fire department responded to the scene. Law enforcement officials received a 911 call about the crash at around noon, she said.At that time, the weather in the area was mostly mild, with overcast skies and wind gusts up to 26 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service.Snow and moisture on the ground were hampering response efforts, Ms. Salvatore said.“It’s in the middle of a field and it’s pretty muddy, so accessibility is difficult,” she said.It was not immediately clear Saturday afternoon what had caused the plane to crash, Ms. Salvatore said, but local law enforcement planed to conduct interviews in the neighborhood to learn more.The F.A.A. and the National Transportation Safety Board are also investigating the crash, according to the aviation agency’s statement.In November of last year, a small plane carrying a pilot and four rescue dogs crashed roughly 50 miles west of Copake, in a remote area of the Catskill Mountains. In June, five members of a family were killed about 40 miles northeast of Binghamton, N.Y., when their small plane crashed en route from Cooperstown to Georgia. More

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      Plane Fire at Denver Airport Forces Passengers to Evacuate Onto Wing

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      The flight had been diverted to the airport after experiencing “engine vibrations,” the authorities said. Six passengers were taken to a hospital for evaluation.American Airlines, which operated the flight, said the plane had experienced an “engine-related issue.”Branden Williams/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAn American Airlines plane that was diverted to Denver International Airport on Thursday evening after experiencing “engine vibrations” caught fire while taxiing to a gate, prompting the evacuation of dozens of passengers, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.Six passengers were taken to a hospital for further evaluation, the airline said. Their conditions were not immediately known.The flight, a Boeing 737-800 with 172 passengers and six crew members, was traveling from Colorado Springs to Dallas but was diverted to the Denver airport, the airline said. Some of the passengers were evacuated from the aircraft using slides, the F.A.A. said.“After landing safely and taxiing to the gate at Denver International Airport, American Airlines Flight 1006 experienced an engine-related issue,” the airline said. Videos posted to social media showed passengers standing on the plane’s wing and climbing down a portable staircase to leave the plane. Light gray smoke filled the air. From other angles, black smoke poured out of the aircraft and orange flames could be seen at the base of the aircraft.A video taken by Mike Insalata, a Denver resident, showed a large fire under the plane’s left engine. The F.AA. is investigating.The episode at Denver International Airport was the latest in a recent string of aviation woes. On Feb. 25, two separate airplanes, one at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport and another at Chicago’s Midway International Airport, had to abort landings to avoid collisions.Earlier last month, a plane at the Toronto Pearson Airport flipped over. And on Feb. 5, the wing of a plane was impaled on the tail of another plane during a collision on the ground at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. More