WASHINGTON (AP) — The government admitted Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army played a role in causing the collision last January between an airliner and a Black Hawk helicopter near the nation’s capital, killing 67 people.

He had a child in the car with him and also was arrested on suspicion of child endangerment, authorities said.

Originally Published: August 9, 2025 at 11:11 AM PDT

Zoox, the autonomous driving technology company owned by Amazon, is preparing to begin testing its vehicles in Los Angeles this summer.

The city will be the sixth testing location for the Bay Area-based venture, which does not yet offer rides to the public.

Founded in 2014 and acquired by Amazon in 2020, Zoox is one of several efforts to bring self-driving technology into the mainstream.

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has been touting the potential of autonomous driving for years, and Waymo, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, is already operating driverless taxis in multiple cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix.

Zoox’s testing in Los Angeles will lay the groundwork for future commercial service, a company spokesperson said. The company plans to welcome its first public riders in Las Vegas and San Francisco by the end of the year.

“We’re going to keep moving towards self-driving tech and it’s not always going to be this obscure enigma that’s only available in a few places,” said Karl Brauer, an analyst at iSeeCars.com. “Amazon wants to start to have the technology in place to take advantage as the capabilities roll out.”

What will Zoox testing look like in Los Angeles?

Zoox will deploy a small number of retrofitted Toyota Highlander test vehicles in Los Angeles, all with human safety drivers, the company said. The SUVs will operate in a limited area within the city, though the company has not disclosed specific routes or geographical boundaries.

As is standard when driving in a new city, the test fleet will complete manual mapping missions to identify challenging routes and road features specific to Los Angeles. Commercial service in the city is still far off and will require regulatory approval.

“Even when the technology is theoretically ready, the regulations and the approval processes are still going to be restricting,” Brauer said.

Zoox will not offer the public rides in its test vehicles or operate them without a human driver, the company’s website says. The company plans to eventually offer an on-demand ride-hailing service using purpose-built autonomous vehicles with no steering wheel and bidirectional capability.

How do Zoox vehicles work?

Zoox’s test vehicles are retrofitted SUVs, but the company is also developing a pill-shaped driverless vehicle that’s meant to be “closer to a living room on wheels than a traditional automobile interior,” the Zoox website says.

The robotaxis will be equipped with sensors and a type of laser-based radar called lidar that enables them to navigate dense urban areas, according to the company. Unlike Waymo vehicles, the taxis will have no driver’s seat or gas pedal.

The vehicles will be equipped with sliding doors and large windows, the spokesperson said, and the seats for passengers will face each other.

Are the vehicles safe?

Zoox vehicles are built to prevent collisions and protect passengers in the event of an unavoidable accident, the company’s website says. The vehicles feature more than 100 safety innovations that don’t exist in traditional cars, according to the company.

The pill-shaped robotaxis are not yet ready for commercial service, but they have been testing on public roads in San Francisco, Foster City and Las Vegas since 2023.

Data suggest that automated driving could be safer than traditional driving. The insurer Swiss Re found that Waymo vehicles are safer than those with human drivers, but Zoox’s technology is not identical.

Both Teslas in Full Self-Driving mode and Waymo vehicles operating without a driver have been involved in accidents and collisions, generating doubt about the safety of self-driving technology. Waymo customers have reported various glitches on social media, including one Reddit user who posted a video of a Waymo driving the wrong direction into oncoming traffic.

Based on data collected by Waymo, its driverless vehicles had 81% fewer airbag deployment crashes, 78% fewer injury-causing crashes and 62% fewer police-reported crashes than traditional vehicles driving the same distance.

What is Amazon planning to do with self-driving technology?

Amazon acquired Zoox five years ago as a wholly owned subsidiary for more than $1.2 billion.

Zoox is aiming to launch a commercial ride-hailing service similar to Uber and Lyft that relies on its purpose-built bidirectional vehicles. But Amazon may have other ideas for the future of autonomous driving, Brauer said. The e-commerce giant could use driverless vehicles to make deliveries, for example, saving money and resources.

“Self-driving tech is a massive change, and if you’re a company like Amazon, you’ve got to be involved in it as quickly as possible,” Brauer said. “Whether it’s moving people or cargo or other things we can’t even conceive yet, Amazon doesn’t want to be caught flat-footed.”

One person was hospitalized Wednesday, Feb. 26 following a “traffic-related incident” involving a Huntington Beach police officer, said Huntington Beach Police spokesperson Jessica Cuchilla.

Police said it occurred around 7:20 p.m. on Beach Boulevard and Heil Avenue. Details on the victim, their condition, and the circumstances leading up to their injuries were not released. The California Highway Patrol, which was handling the investigation, on its incident log described it as a traffic collision between a bicyclist and a police patrol unit.

The police officer involved in the collision did not sustain any injuries.

Footage by news video firm On.SceneTV showed a patrol car in the middle of the intersection cordoned off in yellow caution tape as officers examined the area and photographed the vehicle.

As of 10 p.m., all lanes on Beach Boulevard and Heil Avenue had re-opened.

Deadly Arizona plane collision confirmed

At least two people have died after two small planes crashed midair Wednesday in Arizona, officials said. 

The collision occurred at 8:25 a.m. local time at the Marana Regional Airport in Arizona, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday. The two planes that collided were both smaller fixed-wing single-engine planes, one a Lancair and the other a Cessna.

The airport is located about 21 miles northwest of Tucson. 

Each plane was carrying two passengers and the two who died were on the same aircraft, according to a spokesperson for the town of Marana. The other two people were uninjured.

The two aircrafts collided while “upwind of runway 12,” the National Transportation Safety Board said. The Cessna did not successfully land and the Lancair “impacted terrain near runway 3 and a post-impact fire ensued.”

Neither aircraft was based out of Marana Regional Airport, officials said.

“On behalf of the Town of Marana and the Marana Regional Airport, our hearts go out to all the individuals and families impacted by this event,” Marana Regional Airport Superintendent Galen Beem said in a statement. “This is an unprecedented event, and we are grateful for the swift response from the Marana Police Department and Northwest Fire District.”

The FAA and NTSB are investigating the incident with the NTSB leading the investigation. The Marana Regional Airport is temporarily closed as the investigation continues. 

The Marana Regional Airport is an uncontrolled field, meaning it does not have an operating air traffic control tower and pilots utilize a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency to announce their position to other pilots who are in the vicinity.

The collision Wednesday follows a string of several other aircraft crashes including a Delta Air Lines plane that flipped upside down while landing Monday in Toronto, a fatal medical jet crash in Philadelphia on Jan. 31 and the midair collision between an Army helicopter and a commercial airplane in Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.

Newly appointed Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said Thursday that the midair collision Wednesday night between a regional American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., was “absolutely” preventable.

No one survived the collision, which claimed the lives of 64 passengers and crew onboard the commercial aircraft and three crew onboard the military helicopter.

During a morning news conference, Duffy said the skies over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport were clear and the final runway approach of Flight 5342, which departed from Wichita, Kansas, was “standard,” as was the flight pattern of the military helicopter.

“Obviously, it is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that,” Duffy said. “But prior to the collision, the flight paths that were being flown from the military and from American, that was not unusual for what happens in the D.C. airspace.”

Asked by reporters whether the crash was avoidable, Duffy said it “absolutely” was.

Duffy’s comments came after President Donald Trump posted a statement on his Truth Social platform, questioning why the control tower didn’t wave off the military helicopter from the flight path of the American Airlines jet.

“It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!,” Trump wrote.

In a press conference from the White House later Thursday morning, Trump called the collision a “tragedy of terrible proportions,” and also used the briefing to go on the offensive against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, claiming that the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) DEI hiring plan was to blame for the collision.

When pressed by ABC News’ Mary Bruce, Trump said that “we don’t know” what caused the crash and added that they’re still looking into it. He later said he concluded DEI policies were to blame because he has “common sense.”

A recording released by LiveATC.net of the communications between Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport air traffic control (ATC) and the Black Hawk helicopter indicates the military flight crew was aware of the American Airlines plane’s approach before the crash.

ATC is heard in the recording asking the crew of the helicopter, which the controller referred to as “PAT 25,” if the plane was visible.

“PAT 25, do you have CRJ in sight?” ATC said, using the initials for the make of the American Airlines aircraft, a Bombardier CRJ700.

Two minutes later, ATC provided instructions to the helicopter crew, saying, “PAT 25, pass behind the CRJ.” Three minutes later, the controller provides further instructions to the helicopter crew, saying, “PAT 25 has aircraft in sight – maintain visual separation.”

When pressed by reporters for details about the communications between ATC and the helicopter, Duffy said, “I would say the helicopter was aware there was a plane in the area.”

Duffy said it remains under investigation why the helicopter continued to fly into the path of the passenger plane.

Security video obtained by ABC News captured the first major U.S. air disaster in nearly 16 years. Video footage showed Flight 5342 making its final approach to Reagan National when it was struck by the Black Hawk helicopter, which was traveling south.

Duffy said the Black Hawk helicopter was on a training mission at the time of the crash but did not elaborate.

The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation with assistance from the military and the FAA.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the captain of Flight 5342 had been flying for the American Airlines regional carrier PSA Airlines for six years and that the first officer had been with the airline for two years.

“At this point, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident,” Fire Chief John Donnelly of the Washington, D.C. Fire Department said at Thursday morning’s news conference.

Donnelly said first responders who arrived at the scene within 10 minutes of the crash found the airplane “inverted” in three pieces in waist-high water in the Potomac. He said the helicopter was discovered nearby.

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said he was familiar with the American Airlines flight from Wichita to Washington, D.C., adding, “I’ve flown it many times myself.”

“I lobbied American Airlines to begin having a direct, nonstop flight service to DCA,” Moran said of the route, which has been operating for about one year.

“It is certainly true that in Kansas and Wichita in particular, we’re going to know people who are on this flight, know their family members, know somebody. So this is a very personal circumstance, as well as an official response,” Moran added.

The Black Hawk helicopter involved in the crash was based at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, according to an Army official. “We are working with local officials and will provide additional information once it becomes available,” the official said.

At the time of the crash, the water temperature in the Potomac River was approximately 36 degrees Fahrenheit, while the air temperature at the time of the crash was 50 degrees with winds gusting at 25 to 30 mph.

This is the first major commercial airplane crash in the United States since the Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, New York, in 2009.

Trump released an earlier statement following the crash Wednesday night.

“I have been fully briefed on the terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport. May God Bless their souls. Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders. I am monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arise,” he wrote.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Army and Defense Department would “immediately” launch an investigation into the collision.

“Absolutely tragic. Search and rescue efforts still ongoing. Prayers for all impacted souls, and their families. Investigation launched immediately by Army & DoD,” Hegseth wrote on X.

The Army helicopter was on an “annual proficiency training flight” at the time of the crash, Hegseth said in a video message he later posted.

“It was a fairly experienced crew that was doing a required annual night evaluation,” Hegseth said. “They did have night vision goggles.”

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said “extensive resources are fully supporting the search and rescue efforts” following the crash.

“First responders from across Northern Virginia, D.C. and Maryland mobilized quickly,” he said on X. “I ask everyone to pray for the passengers, crews, their families, and brave first responders.”

Wichita Mayor Lily Wu discussed the reality of people from her community being on the flight, noting that the first direct flight from Wichita to the nation’s capital, which began daily service on Jan. 8, 2024, coincided with her first day in office.

“Our entire community right now is praying, hoping for better news,” Wu told ABC News. “But as a community, the entire city of Wichita, the city council members and the staff all throughout the city of Wichita are hoping that we have better news to come out of this.”

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall said in a social media post, “When one person dies, it’s a tragedy. But when many, many, many people die, it’s an unbearable sorrow … It’s really hard when you lose, you know, probably over 60 Kansans, simultaneously.”

Speaking of the pilots, flight attendants and military personnel, Marshall added, “All those lives are so valuable, and it is such a tragedy that we lost them.”

U.S. Figure Skating issued a statement saying that “several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342,” according to the statement obtained by ABC News.

“These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas,” the statement continued. “We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts. We will continue to monitor the situation and will release more information as it becomes available.”

Russian media also reported that two Russian figure skaters were on board the plane and expressed condolences to the families and friends of those killed in the collision.

“Unfortunately, we see that these sad information is being confirmed,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday morning. “There were other of our fellow citizens there. Bad news from Washington today.”

Earlier, several Russian state media outlets were reporting that married 1994 Russian world figure skating champions in pairs Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who lived in the U.S., were on board the plane, though U.S. authorities have not confirmed these reports.

At least 19 aircraft that were in the air and due to land at Reagan National Airport had to be diverted after the midair collision, according to Jack Potter, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. The diverted flights landed at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

WASHINGTON — In one of the most important cases of the social media age, free speech and national security collide at the Supreme Court on Friday in arguments over the fate of TikTok, a wildly popular digital platform that roughly half the people in the United States use for entertainment and information.

TikTok says it plans to shut down the social media site in the U.S. by Jan. 19 unless the Supreme Court strikes down or otherwise delays the effective date of a law aimed at forcing TikTok’s sale by its Chinese parent company.

Working on a tight deadline, the justices also have before them a plea from President-elect Donald Trump, who has dropped his earlier support for a ban, to give him and his new administration time to reach a “political resolution” and avoid deciding the case. It’s unclear if the court will take the Republican president-elect’s views — a highly unusual attempt to influence a case — into account.

TikTok and China-based ByteDance, as well as content creators and users, argue the law is a dramatic violation of the Constitution’s free speech guarantee.

“Rarely if ever has the court confronted a free-speech case that matters to so many people,” lawyers for the users and content creators wrote. Content creators are anxiously awaiting a decision that could upend their livelihoods and are eyeing other platforms.

The case represents another example of the court being asked to rule about a medium with which the justices have acknowledged they have little familiarity or expertise, though they often weigh in on meaty issues involving restrictions on speech.

The Biden administration, defending the law that President Joe Biden signed in April after it was approved by wide bipartisan majorities in Congress, contends that “no one can seriously dispute that (China’s) control of TikTok through ByteDance represents a grave threat to national security.”

Officials say Chinese authorities can compel ByteDance to hand over information on TikTok’s U.S. patrons or use the platform to spread or suppress information.

But the government “concedes that it has no evidence China has ever attempted to do so,” TikTok told the justices, adding that limits on speech should not be sustained when they stem from fears that are predicated on future risks.

In December, a panel of three appellate judges, two appointed by Republicans and one by a Democrat, unanimously upheld the law and rejected the First Amendment speech claims.

Adding to the tension, the court is hearing arguments just nine days before the law is supposed to take effect and 10 days before a new administration takes office.

In language typically seen in a campaign ad rather than a legal brief, lawyers for Trump have called on the court to temporarily prevent the TikTok ban from going into effect but refrain from a definitive resolution.

“President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” D. John Sauer, Trump’s choice to be his administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote in a legal brief filed with the court.

Trump took no position on the underlying merits of the case, Sauer wrote. Trump’s campaign team used TikTok to connect with younger voters, especially male voters, and Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, in December. He has 14.7 million followers on TikTok.

The justices have set aside two hours for arguments, and the session likely will extend well beyond that. Three highly experienced Supreme Court lawyers will be making arguments. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar will present the Biden administration’s defense of the law, while Trump’s solicitor general in his first administration, Noel Francisco, will argue on behalf of TikTok and ByteDance. Stanford Law professor Jeffrey Fisher, representing content creators and users, will be making his 50th high court argument.

If the law takes effect, Trump’s Justice Department will be charged with enforcing it. Lawyers for TikTok and ByteDance have argued that the new administration could seek to mitigate the law’s most severe consequences.

But they also said that a shutdown of just a month would cause TikTok to lose about one-third of its daily users in the U.S. and significant advertising revenue.

As it weighs the case, the court will have to decide what level of review it applies to the law. Under the most searching review, strict scrutiny, laws almost always fail. But two judges on the appellate court that upheld the law said it would be the rare exception that could withstand strict scrutiny.

TikTok, the app’s users and many briefs supporting them urge the court to apply strict scrutiny to strike down the law.

But the Democratic administration and some of its supporters cite restrictions on foreign ownership of radio stations and other sectors of the economy to justify the effort to counter Chinese influence in the TikTok ban.

A decision could come within days.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

This country has always had a hypocritical relationship with the undocumented workers who keep America’s agricultural, construction and hospitality industries humming.

On one hand, we simply cannot function without them. On the other, xenophobic politicians whip up fear and mistrust of workers on the lowest economic rungs when it serves their purposes.

And voters, who may be angry about all sorts of things, often find it easier to blame outsiders for woes they have nothing to do with, such as inflation.

But we can’t delude ourselves: President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible threatens devastating consequences for the country’s economy, for prices and for the people who come to this country to pick our fruits and vegetables, build our homes and wash our dishes.

California, where some economists estimate that half of our 900,000 farmworkers are undocumented, would be especially hard hit.

Joe Del Bosque, 75, has grown cantaloupes, almonds and asparagus on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side for decades. During the picking season, his employment rolls can swell to as many as 200 workers, none of whom is native-born and white. Some of his workers have lived in the United States with “temporary protected status” for years, some have green cards and the rest have been able to provide documents that satisfy minimal federal requirements.

“A lot of these jobs in agriculture are not wanted by American citizens,” Del Bosque told me Wednesday. “And I don’t blame them. It’s hard work in extreme conditions out there that a lot of people don’t want to do at any wage.”

Also, he said, the work is seasonal. Farmworkers roam from crop to crop based on the time of year.

“The people that do it go from one farm to another to another,” Del Bosque said. “Who can make a living in this country working a three-month job? It’s not easy.”

The prospect of widespread immigration raids and deportations has sent chills down the spines of farmworkers and their bosses, many of whom remember when employment shortages left produce rotting in the fields as recently as 10 years ago.

“We need to get together and agree we need some form of immigration reform, especially for essential workers,” said Del Bosque. “They provide food for the country. Can’t get more essential than that.”

In the mid-1980s, when he managed cantaloupe fields, federal government pilots would fly small planes over the state’s cropland looking for large crews of workers, he recalled. The pilots would radio information about the workers to the ground, where vans full of immigration officers would storm farms to, as Del Bosque put it, “capture as many as they could.”

One raid he witnessed ended in tragedy. Two of the farmworkers fleeing the feds jumped into an aqueduct at the edge of the field and tried to swim away.

“One didn’t make it,” Del Bosque said. “He drowned on the spot. They pulled him out and he’d passed away. I remember they had a hearing in Merced, and several of us came to testify about what happened. But I don’t think anything ever came of it.”

Human Rights Watch reported that from 1974 to 1986, 15 migrant farmworkers were known to have drowned in Central Valley canals during immigration raids. Immigrant rights groups accused Border Patrol agents of deliberately herding workers toward irrigation canals, which they used as barriers to prevent flight.

Border Patrol vehicles at the time carried no lifesaving equipment, which “suggested callousness, if not criminal neglect,” Human Rights Watch argued. In 1984, Border Patrol officials belatedly announced that agents would be required to carry lifesaving equipment when working near rivers and canals.

Without question, this country’s immigration system is broken. It’s illegal to hire undocumented workers, but employers do so anyway because they can’t function without this human capital. With rare exceptions, the government looks the other way. In fact, the odds that an employer will face an inspection by immigration authorities, my colleague Don Lee recently wrote, “are even less than a taxpayer’s likelihood of being audited by the Internal Revenue Service.”

Lee’s story focused on E-Verify, the computer-based program that allows employers to check a prospective employee’s legal status easily, almost instantly and free of charge.

The problem, as Lee reported, is that most employers won’t use it. They simply do not want to know that workers are here illegally; they desperately need the labor.

The summer I graduated from high school, my sister got me a job waiting tables with her at a restaurant on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills. The restaurant, Pages, was sort of an upscale diner, with a long counter, a pie case and booths along a picture window at the front.

Every so often, we would hear a stir in the kitchen as the Spanish-speaking men who worked in the kitchen warned each other that “la migra” — the immigration authorities — were on their way. This was long before cellphones; I don’t know who tipped them off.

From inside the restaurant, the guys would clamber up to the roof, wait for the “all clear” and then get right back to busing tables, washing dishes and cooking. Those who were apprehended and deported would soon return to work after sneaking back across the border, which was much more porous before President Reagan’s 1986 amnesty coupled with stricter border enforcement. Bosses who encouraged and condoned such attempts to evade the feds typically faced no repercussions.

It was a ritual, almost pointless dance — except that it was disruptive and scary as hell.

And it will continue unless and until Congress rectifies our incredible hypocrisy about undocumented immigrants by reforming the immigration system. It might be in Trump’s best interest to keep demonizing them, but it most definitely is not in ours.

Bluesky: @rabcarian.bsky.social. Threads: @rabcarian

In 2022, the average time between the last repair estimate and the collision work being completed was nearly 58 days for EVs, more than 12 days than for non-EVs. Getting the vehicle into the shop added seven full days, and repairs required an additional five days.

Last estimate assignment sent to vehicle (in days)
EVs: 35.3
Non-EVs: 28.2

Repair started to repair completion (in days)
EVs: 19.5
Non-EVs: 14.3

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