NEW YORK — The UPS cargo plane crash on Tuesday at the company’s global aviation hub in Kentucky, which killed at least nine, will temporarily disrupt the supply chain and result in some shipping delays.

But UPS says it has contingency plans in place, and experts say the impact should be cleared up before the peak holiday season.

The plane crashed Tuesday evening as it was departing for Honolulu from UPS Worldport, UPS’ largest shipping hub, at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. Package sorting at the center was halted late Tuesday and the halt continued on Wednesday. About 416,000 packages can be sorted at the facility per hour, according to a UPS fact sheet.

Consumers who want to check on their UPS packages can wait to hear from the company or look up tracking details online.

Tom Goldsby, professor of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said UPS will most likely step up flights to its regional hubs to offset Worldport’s closure.

The hubs are “going to take on a greater burden until that critical operation in Louisville gets back to the full capacity,” he said.

UPS said in a statement that it has contingency plans in place to help ensure that shipments arrive at their final destinations as quickly as conditions permit, but did not give specifics on what the plans were.

Goldsby said UPS will be under pressure to resolve any delays before the peak holiday season.

“It’s an issue that they quickly want to resolve, but they are going to have to do their due diligence in resolving the current crisis,” he said.

He himself was expecting a UPS package from Oregon routed through Worldport today, but got a message that it would have to be rescheduled.

“I understand the circumstance and will gladly receive it when it arrives,” he said, adding patience will be needed for others expecting packages. “People and businesses don’t have a lot of understanding (about the supply chain). We just don’t expect our logistics operations to have a calamity or even a bad day.″

The crash comes as UPS works on a turnaround, focusing less on Amazon deliveries and more on business-to-business deliveries. In its most recent earnings report last week, the company said it has cut 48,000 jobs in the year to date and closed some buildings as part of its turnaround. Its third-quarter results beat expectations.

NAIROBI, Kenya — A small plane crashed in Kenya’s coastal region of Kwale early Tuesday while en route to Maasai Mara National Reserve, with 12 people feared dead, officials said.

The crash happened in a hilly and forested area about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Diani airstrip, authorities said. Kwale County Commissioner Stephen Orinde told The Associated Press that operations at the crash site were ongoing and more details would be provided later.

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said that 12 people were onboard the aircraft and authorities were investigating the cause of the crash.

Maasai Mara National Reserve is a popular tourist destination and features the annual wildebeest migration from the Serengeti in Tanzania.

NEW DELHI — NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s leading body of pilots has asked the civil aviation regulator to inspect all Boeing 787 Dreamliners operating in the country for electrical issues after one of the planes abruptly deployed an emergency power system midair over the weekend.

The device, a small propeller that acts as a backup generator and which is known as the ram air turbine, or RAT, normally would be activated when an aircraft’s engines lose power, its hydraulic systems register critically low pressure or its electrical systems fail.

However, the RAT engaged unexpectedly on Saturday aboard Air India flight 117 from the northern Indian city of Amritsar moments before it landed safely in Birmingham, England.

The Federation of Indian Pilots, which represents about 6,000 pilots, asked for the investigation Sunday evening.

Air India, owned by business conglomerate Tata Group, said in a statement that an initial inspection following the weekend incident found that “all electrical and hydraulic parameters were normal” and that the aircraft landed safely.

The midair deployment of the emergency device has reignited concerns in India over the safety of the Dreamliner. In June, an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London crashed in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad, killing 260 people including 19 on the ground, in one of India’s worst aviation disasters.

A preliminary report into the June 12 crash found that the fuel control switches for the engines were moved from the “run” to the “cutoff” position moments before impact, starving both engines of fuel. The RAT system activated as it was supposed to have done when the plane lost power and engine thrust, the report said.

Charanvir Singh Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots, said that he’d never heard of the RAT system being deployed even when there are no problems in the engines, hydraulics or electrical systems, as appeared to be the case over the weekend. “It’s a serious concern that warrants a detailed inquiry,” he said.

Randhawa, whose career spans five decades in aviation, wrote an email to India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Sunday, apprising it of the incident and urging an investigation into the electrical systems of all Boeing Dreamliners operating in India.

A spokesman for India’s Civil Aviation Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment, and a spokeswoman for Boeing India was not immediately available for comment.

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. — Two people died when a small plane crashed and caught on fire near a suburban Denver airport on Friday, officials said.

The crash happened just south of Centennial Airport and was initially reported as an explosion, Deborah Takahara, a spokesperson for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, said.

Firefighters found the Beech BE35 airplane engulfed in flames, with the fire threatening to spread to a nearby building and some diesel-powered generators, Brian Willie, a spokesperson for South Metro Fire Rescue, said. Firefighters were able to put out the flames, he said.

The plane appeared to have crashed in the parking lot of an industrial office park.

Air traffic control audio posted by LiveATC.net includes an air traffic controller clearing the plane for takeoff just before the crash.

Another pilot later reported seeing smoke.

“Tower, there’s smoke off the left side. Looks like he went down,” came the report, followed a few seconds later by: “He appears to have crashed in the parking lot about a mile southeast of the field.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said it is investigating the crash of the plane.

KALISPELL, Mont. — A small plane landing on Monday at a Montana airport crashed into a parked aircraft, triggering a large fire but causing no serious injuries, authorities said.

The single-engine plane carrying four people was attempting to land at about 2 p.m. at the Kalispell City Airport, according to Kalispell Police Chief Jordan Venezio and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the Socata TBM 700 turboprop aircraft stuck an unoccupied plane on the ground. That caused a fire that spread into a grassy area before it was extinguished, according to Venezio, who said several aircraft were involved.

The small, city-owned airport is just south of Kalispell, a city of about 30,000 people in northwest Montana.

Witnesses said a plane approached from the south, crash-landed at the end of the runway and careened into another aircraft, Kalispell Fire Chief Jay Hagen said.

The plane that was attempting to land burst into flame but the pilot and three passengers were able to get out on their own after it came to a stop, Hagen said.

Two passengers were slightly hurt and treated at the airport, Hagen said. The plane was built in 2011 and is owned by Meter Sky LLC of Pullman, Washington, FAA records show. Company representatives did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

Aviation safety consultant Jeff Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for both the FAA and NTSB, said incidents where planes crash into parked planes happen a few times a year in general aviation.

In one high-profile incident in February, a Learjet owned by Motley Crue singer Vince Neil veered off a runway in Scottsdale, Arizona, and crashed into a parked Gulfstream, killing one person. The NTSB said that crash may have been related to prior damage to the landing gear, but investigators haven’t determined the cause.

MONTEREY, Calif. — All three people aboard a small twin-engine plane that crashed into the Pacific Ocean off California’s central coast perished, law enforcement officials said.

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office confirmed late Sunday that the three occupants of the plane that went down about 300 yards (275 meters) off Point Pinos were dead. Officials didn’t say what led to the Saturday crash.

Witnesses said they heard an aircraft engine revving and then a splash in the water, KSBW-TV reported. People on shore later reported seeing debris wash up from the crashed plane.

The twin-engine Beech 95-B55 Baron with three people aboard took off from the San Carlos airport at 10:11 p.m. and was last seen at 10:37 p.m. near Monterey, according to flight tracking data from FlightAware.com.

Searchers in a boat found one person around 3 a.m. Divers found the remaining two people inside the aircraft between 6:30 a.m. and 9:15 a.m. All three were unresponsive, the Coast Guard said.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate.

Fifteen people were taken to the hospital after a skydiving aircraft radioed it was having engine trouble after takeoff and crashed on landing near an airport in southern New Jersey on Wednesday, according to authorities.

The single engine Cessna 208B was carrying 15 people when it crashed at about 5:30 p.m. at the Cross Keys Airport, about 21 miles (34 kilometers) southeast of Philadelphia, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

“The plane did try to circle back and attempt a landing we are told but was unsuccessful in that attempt,” Andrew Halter, with Gloucester County Emergency Management, said during a news conference Wednesday night.

The injuries ranged from minor to critical and the plane was severely damaged, Halter said. Some of the people on board were covered in jet fuel and had to be decontaminated before being taken to the hospital, he said.

“Just the fact that we have 15 people that are still with us here today, some with minor injuries, I think is fantastic and remarkable,” he said.

Aerial footage of the crashed plane shows it in the woods, with several pieces of debris nearby. Firetrucks and other emergency vehicles surrounded the scene.

Three people were being evaluated at Cooper University Hospital’s trauma center in Camden, New Jersey, and eight people with less severe injuries were being treated in its emergency department, said Wendy A. Marano, a spokesperson for the hospital. Four other patients also with “minimal injuries” were waiting for further evaluation, she said. She wasn’t able to provide the exact nature of the injuries.

Members of the hospital’s EMS and trauma department were at the crash site, she said.

Halter said the aircraft is owned and operated by ARNE Aviation out of Virginia and leased to Skydive Cross Keys. Skydive Cross Keys didn’t immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press requesting comment. When asked about the crash, Tracey Sackett, who confirmed she is ARNE Aviation’s office manager, said to call the office tomorrow.

A person who answered the phone at Cross Keys Airport on Wednesday said he had no information and referred questions to Skydive Cross Keys.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in a post on the social platform X that it is investigating the crash.

Gov. Phil Murphy said on X that he had been briefed on the crash and that there had been “no fatalities at this time.”

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Associated Press reporter Mark Scolforo contributed from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Aviation Administration is facing tough questions about safety during a hearing Wednesday in the wake of January’s deadly midair collision and a string of other crashes and near misses since then.

Much of the industry, including the major airlines and their trade groups, supports Bryan Bedford’s nomination. But pilots unions and Democrats have raised concerns that he might weaken pilot training standards.

Bedford has been CEO of regional airline Republic Airways since 1999 and has more than three decades of experience in the industry. He has pledged to make safety the FAA’s top priority and work to restore public confidence in flying. Bedford also said he’ll work with Congress on Trump’s multi-billion-dollar plan to overhaul the nation’s air traffic control system.

The National Transportation Safety Board has said the FAA should have acted before the crash in Washington, D.C., because there had been 85 near misses reported around Ronald Reagan National Airport in the years before the disaster. The FAA has since banned some helicopter routes to make sure helicopters and planes no longer share the same airspace, but there have still been additional near misses in recent months.

FAA’s acting administrator and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have acknowledged the FAA’s shortcomings in not recognizing the risk and pledged to review all the agency’s data to identify any similar concerns nationwide about helicopter traffic near airports. That review prompted the agency to put new limits on helicopter flights around Las Vegas’ airport.

Even the air traffic controllers union backed Bedford’s nomination because of his support for the effort to modernize the outdated system and bolster controller hiring. Two different radar outages this spring in a facility that directs planes in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport highlighted the problems because the FAA had to limit flights at the airport after five controllers took trauma leave after the problems.

“Flying is safe, but as you know the system that manages our skies is showing its age,” Bedford said in his prepared statement to the committee. “The stresses of this antiquated system truly came into view as we all returned to the skies after COVID.”

Pilots’ unions and Democrats have raised concerns that Bedford may support weakening the 1,500-hour experience standard for airline pilots that was adopted after a 2009 crash or even might consider allowing some airlines to operate with only one pilot. Republic previously asked for permission to hire pilots with less experience because the standard was making it hard to find enough pilots.

“People are going to want to know … whether you’re going to lead any effort to change that rule,” Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell said. She asked for a firm written answer because “you helped fund and lobbied for a change for it.”

Bedford acknowledged Wednesday that “problems persist and more work needs to be done” to ensure the safety of flying around the nation’s capital. He said his own airline’s planes have received at least three alarms about conflicting traffic around Reagan since January.

NEW YORK — Adelynn Campbell’s last plane trip ended with a panic attack that she got through largely with the help of a kind flight attendant.

That was last year — before 67 people died in January when an American Airlines jet collided with a helicopter over Washington, D.C., in the deadliest U.S. air disaster in almost a quarter century.

Now, Campbell is even more hesitant to book a flight.

“It’s definitely spiked my concern about getting on a plane and it’s making the whole situation a little more stressful than it used to be,” said Campbell, 30, who manages a coffee shop in San Diego.

Being at least a little nervous about flying is understandable. As Mel Brooks once said: “If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.” But for some people it causes deep anxiety that could require professional help.

Here’s a look at air travel anxiety and ways to cope with it.

The evidence is anecdotal, but psychologists and flight attendants say they’ve seen and heard increased worries — and not only in people who already had anxieties about flying.

“Even people who didn’t have a fear of flying are talking about it, given recent events,” said Jennifer Dragonette, a California-based psychologist who treats people with air travel anxieties.

U.S. air travel was down in March and early April compared with last year, according to TSA statistics. Airlines have attributed the decline to economic uncertainty, a decline in government and corporate travel and — yes — concern about recent aviation incidents.

FAA officials recently acknowledged they weren’t doing enough to ensure air safety. Recent polling by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that fewer Americans report feeling safe about flying this year.

Flight attendants who work planes out of the Washington, D.C., airport were particularly rattled by the January collision, said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants union. Some asked for time off to process their emotions, and at least one flight attendant left the job, she said.

Fear of flying — sometimes called aerophobia — goes beyond just being nervous about a flight. It is an intense form of anxiety that centers on certain aspects of air travel. Many aerophobes get most rattled during take-off and landing, or when they think about being locked in a plane.

Some research has suggested it affects about 25 million U.S. adults. Psychologists say it often surfaces in adulthood, developing in people who didn’t mind flying as kids but grew more rattled as they aged.

In many cases, it starts when people are in their 20s or 30s, at a time they are experiencing big life changes and new responsibilities — like getting married or becoming a parent — and they start to think that “everything counts,” said David Carbonell, a Chicago-based psychologist who authored a workbook to help people cope with flying fears.

A bad flight with heavy turbulence or some other problem may trigger an anxiety that persists, he said.

Campbell, who has other forms of anxiety, developed a fear of flying a few years ago. She is transgender, and said travel can be stressful because of concerns about how she’ll be treated by airport security or in other interactions.

Aerophobia can be complicated, Carbonell said. For many people, it’s not so much a fear of crashing as it is claustrophobic feelings of being in an enclosed cabin and not having control.

Campbell said that’s what she experiences: “feeling trapped and unable to breathe.”

Nelson said flight attendants regularly deal with suffering passengers: “We’ve had people have panic attacks, and we’ve had to give them oxygen. It can be quite intense.”

Statistics have long shown that airliners are probably the safest way to travel. According to the National Safety Council, the odds of dying in an airplane crash are too low to be calculated, based on 2023 statistics — making them far, far lower than of being killed in a motor vehicle crash or, for that matter, walking on a sidewalk or crossing a street.

But experts say you can’t really reason your way out of an anxiety disorder.

Carbonell spends little time on statistics, telling patients: “I know you already looked at them all, and they’re not helping you.”

For people with milder levels of aerophobia, deep breathing often works. Longer exhales help the body relax, said Dragonette, who counseled Campbell for aerophobia and other anxiety disorders at a Newport Healthcare residential facility in Temecula, California.

People suffering more extreme cases can be helped with exposure therapy. It can start by simply getting patients to become comfortable looking at photos of planes, watching videos of planes flying safely, or putting on a virtual reality headset that shows recordings of being inside a plane, Dragonette said.

It’s a matter of getting patients to learn to live with their feelings and better handle them.

Carbonell recommends patients take practice flights that do not involve work trips or any other responsibilities. When they have symptoms, he recommends they keep a written inventory.

“They’re keeping a simple count,” he said. “We’re using counting as a proxy for acceptance.”

Nelson, who was a longtime United Airlines flight attendant, says: “I’ve had situations where I’d sort of sit in the aisle and hold someone’s hand.”

On a Frontier Airlines flight last year from Detroit to San Diego, Campbell tried breathing and other coping skills, but they didn’t halt her panic attack. The passenger next to her noticed she was increasingly anxious, and summoned a flight attendant.

The flight attendant took deep breaths with Campbell and helped her get through it, and also took down Campbell’s phone number and checked on her a day later.

“I was really impressed,” she said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

A private plane that crashed in upstate New York over the weekend was carrying six members of a close-knit family of physicians and distinguished student-athletes on a trip to the Catskills for a birthday celebration and the Passover holiday.

The twin-engine Mitsubishi MU-2B went down shortly after noon Saturday in a muddy field in Copake, New York, near the Massachusetts line, killing everyone on board, according to authorities and a family member who spoke to The Associated Press.

Shortly before the crash, the pilot had radioed air traffic control at Columbia County Airport to say he had missed the initial approach and requested a new approach plan, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board said at a Sunday briefing. While preparing the new coordinates, air traffic controllers attempted to relay a low altitude alert three times, with no response from the pilot and no distress call, officials said.

Investigators obtained video of the final seconds of the flight, which “appears to show that the aircraft was intact and crashed at a high rate of descent into the ground,” NTSB official Todd Inman told reporters.

Among the victims were Karenna Groff, a former MIT soccer player named the 2022 NCAA woman of the year; her father, a neuroscientist, Dr. Michael Groff; her mother, Dr. Joy Saini, a urogynecologist; her brother, Jared Groff, a 2022 graduate of Swarthmore College who worked as a paralegal; Alexia Couyutas Duarte, Jared Groff’s partner who also graduated Swarthmore and planned to attend Harvard Law School this fall; and Karenna Groff’s boyfriend, James Santoro, another recent MIT graduate, according to a family statement Sunday.

“They were a wonderful family,” James’ father, John Santoro, told AP. “The world lost a lot of very good people who were going to do a lot of good for the world if they had the opportunity. We’re all personally devastated.”

Santoro said his son first met Karenna Groff as a freshman studying at MIT. Groff, who grew up in Weston, Massachusetts, was an All-American soccer player studying biomedical engineering. Santoro, a math major from New Jersey, played lacrosse for the school.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Karenna Groff co-founded openPPE, helping to create a new design of masks for essential workers. In 2023, she received the prestigious NCAA woman of the year award for the previous year for her on- and off-field accomplishments.

“Really, this recognition is a testament to my MIT women’s soccer family and all of the guidance, support, and friendship they have provided for me over the years,” she said in an interview at the time.

After graduating, Santoro and Groff moved to Manhattan, where Groff enrolled in medical school at New York University and Santoro worked as an investment associate for Silver Point, a hedge fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

India-born Saini was an accomplished pelvic surgeon and the founder of Boston Pelvic Health and Wellness, according to the family statement. She trained in medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, where she met Michael Groff, who became a distinguished neurosurgeon and experienced pilot, the statement said.

On Saturday morning, they all headed to Westchester County Airport in White Plains, a suburb of New York City, where they boarded Michael Groff’s private plane, according to John Santoro.

They were set to land at Columbia County Airport but crashed roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) to the south. The plane was “compressed, buckled and embedded in the terrain” of a muddy agricultural field, Inman said.

The pilot was flying under instrument flight rules, rather than visual flight rules, but it was too soon to determine if reduced visibility from weather conditions were a factor, he said.

The plane had been sold a year ago and had an upgraded cockpit with newer technology that was certified to Federal Aviation Administration standards, according to the NTSB.

Investigators expect to be at the crash site for about a week and a full accident report could take between 12 and 24 months to complete, Inman said.

Funeral arrangements were underway, Santoro said.

“The 25 years we had with James were the best years of our lives,” he added, “and the joy and love he brought us will be enough to last a lifetime.”

A plane carrying six people crashed in an open field near Copake, N.Y., Saturday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

At least one person was killed, Columbia County Undersheriff Jacqueline Salvatore said in a news conference Saturday afternoon, but could not specify how many other passengers survived. The National Transportation Safety Board said at a news conference on a Sunday all six people were removed from the scene and nobody has been hospitalized. 

NTSB officials, who are leading the investigation on the crash, wouldn’t directly confirm the fatalities and referred to local authorities.

The passengers were family members and partners coming in for a holiday celebration, according to the NTSB.

According to a video obtained by the NTSB, the aircraft was intact before it crashed at a high rate of descent. The pilot had received a low altitude alert and air traffic control attempted to contact the pilot several times, NTSB officials said Sunday, but there was no response and no distress call.

The plane did not hit any structures on the way down, Salvatore told reporters, and the crash site is difficult to access because of muddy conditions. It was unclear what had caused the plane to crash, Salvatore said the day before investigators arrived.

Officials from the sheriff’s office, New York State Police, and a local fire department assisted after a 911 call came in around noon.

The Mitsubishi MU-2B-40 was flying to the Columbia County Airport in Hudson, N.Y., the FAA noted.

Data from the tracking site FlightAware shows the same model plane take off from Westchester County Airport just after 11:30 a.m., with a 12:06 p.m. scheduled landing time. The flight path stops short of the airport after turning east.

While Congress pushed ahead last year with adding 10 new daily flights to Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, many looked past concerns about dangers in the congested skies over the nation’s capital.

Squeezing in more flights would only increase the risks, said Virginia’s two senators, who called a near miss between two planes on a runway last April a “flashing red warning light.”

What wasn’t publicly known at the time — and didn’t surface until this week during the investigation into the January midair collision between an airliner and military helicopter that killed 67 people — was that close calls at the airport were far more frequent than travelers and aviation experts knew.

Now, safety experts and family members who lost loved ones in the Jan. 29 crash are asking why no one acted in the face of what appeared to be a looming disaster.

The National Transportation Safety Board said airplane pilots were alerted to take evasive action to avoid hitting helicopters at least once a month from 2011 through 2024, citing data compiled by the Federal Aviation Administration, and that there were 85 near misses when aircraft were within a few hundred feet (meters) of each other during recent years.

“How does that happen in this day and age and somebody doesn’t do something about it?” asked Doug Lane, whose wife, Christine Conrad Lane, and their 16-year-old son, Spencer, died in the crash.

Pilots have long worried about the congested and complex airspace around the airport near the heart of the capital, where flights must maneuver around military aircraft and restricted areas. It was no secret there had been previous close calls, but the numbers found by the NTSB were alarming.

“Why someone was not paying attention to those numbers and those events are questions yet to be answered,” said James Hall, a former NTSB chair during the Clinton administration.

“What not to do is to ignore that many incidents,” he said.

FAA officials have not yet addressed whether they knew there were so many encounters between planes and helicopters at Reagan National. Messages seeking comment were not immediately returned Thursday.

Current NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who oversees the FAA, both said they were angry that the number of close calls were not recognized earlier by the FAA.

“If someone was paying attention, someone was on the job, they would have seen this,” Duffy said. He also announced he will move forward with banning some helicopter flights around the airport, a move that was temporarily made after the crash.

Safety advocate Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the U.S. Transportation Department, said that while there was plenty of blame to go around for the midair collision, the FAA was shockingly complacent.

“They literally wait for a disaster,” she said. ”I can’t even fathom how the families of those lost in this crash can even deal with this. I mean this would be so maddening to hear.”

The crowded airspace around Washington drew attention last year when Congress debated an aviation safety bill that allowed 10 more flights a day at Reagan National, despite strong objections from Virginia’s Democratic senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.

Kaine, during a speech on the Senate floor, didn’t mention specific concerns about encounters between airliners and helicopters or cite any statistics, but he did say the congestion was “a problem waiting to happen.”

While Congress did OK the extra flights, they had not started as of the deadly January collision.

The FAA limits arrival and departure slots at three of the nation’s busiest airports, where demand exceeds the airport’s capacity: Reagan National and New York City’s LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International airports.

But Congress has a history of directing the FAA to add slots at Reagan, even though Washington’s other international airport, Dulles, has capacity to handle them. Reagan is closer to the capital and most federal departments and therefore more convenient, particularly for lawmakers.

Mike McCormick, coordinator of the Air Traffic Management program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said the congestion at Reagan National clearly contributed to the midair collision because the American Airlines jetliner, which was on a newly added route from Wichita, Kansas, was diverted to a different runway closer to the helicopter flights.

“In this instance, the sole reason for doing it was because they were too busy,” McCormick said. “This is something that controller has probably done thousands of times.”

The flight from Wichita to Washington began operating in early 2024, with the backing of Kansas lawmakers who said it was a “vital” to link the nation’s capital with the city, which has a long history as an aircraft manufacturing hub.

U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat who serves on an aviation subcommittee, said the cause of the accident and the congestion at Reagan National are for now, “two different conversations.”

“I understand, the desire for us all to be able to connect these dots,” she said. “Right now that is not a connection that has been made by the NTSB.”

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Associated Press reporters Michael Casey in Boston; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

LITITZ, Pa. — Three of the five people injured in a single-engine plane crash in central Pennsylvania over the weekend were sent from a Lancaster hospital to a burn center for treatment, authorities said Monday.

Two patients were flown to the Lehigh Valley Health Network’s burn center and a third was driven there by ambulance, according to a spokesman for Lancaster General Hospital, where all five occupants were taken immediately after the crash. The other two patients were released Sunday night from Lancaster General, he said in an email.

The plane burst into flames as it crashed shortly after takeoff Sunday from Lancaster Airport and was destroyed. It landed in a parking lot of the Brethren Village retirement community in Lititz, some 75 miles (121 kilometers) west of Philadelphia.

Lehigh Valley Health Network spokeswoman Jamie Stover said she was not permitted to confirm that her facility treated anyone without first being told the patients’ names, which authorities have not released.

The Beechcraft Bonanza plane, registered to Jam Zoom Yayos LLC in Manheim, not far from the airport, went down just after 3 p.m. No one was killed in the fiery crash and no one was injured on the ground, the Federal Aviation Administration said. FlightAware said the plane was headed to Springfield, Ohio.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it has opened an investigation and is working with the FAA, which it said has someone at the site to examine it and gather documentation. Investigators will look into the pilot, the aircraft and the operating environment, the NTSB said. That will include gathering recordings of air traffic control communications, flight tracking data, witness statements, surveillance video and aircraft maintenance records.

A preliminary report is expected within 30 days of the accident, while an investigation can take 12 to 24 months to complete, it said.

A message seeking comment was left Monday for the airport’s operations director.

Witness Brian Pipkin was driving when he noticed the plane veer to its left.

“And then it went down nose first,” Pipkin said Sunday. “There was an immediate fireball.” He called 911.

Air traffic control audio captured the pilot reporting that the aircraft “has an open door, we need to return for a landing.” An air traffic controller is heard clearing the plane to land, before saying, “Pull up!” Moments later, someone can be heard saying the aircraft was “down just behind the terminal in the parking lot street area.”

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.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A U.S. Marine from California was identified by military officials Sunday as one of four people killed when a plane contracted by the U.S. military crashed in a rice field in the southern Philippines.

Sgt. Jacob M. Durham died Thursday in the crash of an aircraft that was conducting a routine mission “providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies,” officials at Camp Pendleton, California, said in a statement. Officials said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

Durham’s age and the California city where he was from were not included in the statement. Officials did not immediately respond to emails requesting that information.

Three defense contractors also were killed in the crash, military officials have said.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines confirmed the crash of a light plane in Maguindanao del Sur province. The bodies of the four people were retrieved from the wreckage in Ampatuan town, said Ameer Jehad Tim Ambolodto, a safety officer of Maguindanao del Sur.

U.S. forces have been deployed in a Philippine military camp in the country’s south for decades to help provide training and advice to Filipino forces battling Muslim militants. The region is home to minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation.

Windy Beaty, a provincial disaster-mitigation officer, told The Associated Press on Thursday that she received reports that residents saw smoke coming from the plane and heard an explosion before the aircraft plummeted to the ground less than a kilometer (about half a mile) from a cluster of farmhouses.

Durham was trained as an electronic intelligence/electromagnetic warfare analyst assigned to 1st Radio Battalion, I Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, officials said. He joined the Marines in January 2021 and was promoted to his current rank on Feb. 1.

Durham’s awards include the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, a Meritorious Mast, and Naval Aircrew Insignia, officials said.

“Sgt. Durham embodied the highest traditions of the Marine Corps — exemplifying composure, intelligence, and selfless leadership,” Lt. Col. Mabel B. Annunziata, commanding officer of 1st Radio Battalion, said in the statement. “He was deeply respected and loved by his fellow Marines.”

WASHINGTON — A Missouri man who crashed a rental truck into barriers protecting the White House was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison for an attack that prosecutors said was inspired by his fascination with Nazi ideology, court records show.

Sai Varshith Kandula, then 19, nearly struck two people standing next to a park bench when he steered a U-Haul box truck onto a sidewalk and toward metal bollards that prevent vehicles from entering Lafayette Square, which is located north of the White House. He retrieved a Nazi flag from a backpack after the May 22, 2023, crash, which didn’t injure anybody.

Kandula wanted to “attack and destroy” the U.S. government, prosecutors said.

“He wanted to eliminate the democratic process in America and replace the government with a Nazi style dictatorship,” they wrote.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich also sentenced Kandula to three years of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay nearly $57,000 in restitution, according to court records.

Defense attorney Scott Rosenblum said Kandula was suffering from schizophrenia and was overwhelmed by delusional thoughts, including his belief that “a reptilian race had installed a puppet regime to operate the U.S.”

“He’s amenable to treatment, understands its necessity, and recognizes an illness produced the acts that led to his current circumstances,” Rosenblum wrote.

Prosecutors recommended an eight-year prison sentence for Kandula, who pleaded guilty in May to a property damage charge. He has remained in custody since his arrest.

Kandula planned the attack for weeks before he took a flight from St. Louis to Washington, D.C. only hours before the crash, prosecutors said. He rented the truck in Herndon, Virginia approximately three hours before he crashed it into the barriers.

After Kandula backed up and slammed into the bollards a second time, the truck began smoking from its engine compartment and leaking fluids.

Authorities didn’t find any weapons, ammunition or explosives in his possession. But prosecutors said the attempted assassination of President-elect Donald Trump at a July 13 rally in Pennsylvania shows that “individuals who carry such destructive intent are capable of inflicting serious damage to the American political system.”

Police body camera video captured the aftermath of the crash. After his arrest, Kandula told investigators that he purchased the swastika flag because “Nazis have a great history.”

“He specifically praised Adolf Hitler. And it wasn’t just words — when his truck was disabled in the attack, the first thing he did was unfurl the flag of Nazi Germany,” prosecutors wrote.

After Kandula’s arrest, two psychologists diagnosed him with schizophrenia, according to Rosenblum.

“Both also believe his illness led directly to his offense,” the lawyer wrote.

Rosenblum said Kandula’s conviction will likely result in his deportation to India.

What is going on with aviation security?

People have been found dead hiding in the wheel wells of planes twice in the past month. Two stowaways were arrested on different flights in November and December. Then a passenger opened an emergency door while a plane was taxiing in Boston Tuesday night.

These incidents are being investigated, so we don’t know yet exactly where security failed. But clearly there were gaps in security. So it’s natural to wonder: is my flight safe?

Passengers panicked when a man onboard a JetBlue plane taxiing for takeoff at Boston’s Logan International Airport opened an exit door over a wing, trigging an emergency slide to inflate Tuesday. Other passengers quickly restrained the man, and the plane never took off, but clearly it was a scary moment.

On Monday, two dead bodies were found inside the landing gear compartment of a different JetBlue plane after it landed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

In late December, a body was found in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane after it landed in Maui from Chicago.

Also in December, a passenger without a ticket was discovered aboard a Delta Air Lines flight as that plane was rolling across the tarmac in Seattle before it took off for Honolulu.

A separate stowaway was arrested in November after a Delta Air Lines flight from New York landed in Paris. That Russian national had somehow bypassed security to board the flight.

If a stowaway can get inside a plane’s wheel well or sneak aboard the cabin, what would prevent someone with malicious intent from getting access?

“The challenge we run into is we have a system with gaps, and those gaps are sometimes exploited,” said Jeff Price, professor of aviation at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

The Transportation Security Administration, the airlines and the airports are all trying to find where those gaps are and plug them. But Price said that by design there are gaps in the system.

The fact that people are getting access to these planes makes pilots worried about the system.

“Right now we’re seeing some fissure cracks. They’re unacceptable. And we’ve been lucky that it hasn’t been somebody with broader nefarious intent,” said Dennis Tajer, a longtime airline pilot and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association union.

Experts have also said that a shortage of air traffic controllers, outdated plane-tracking technology and other problems are eroding the margin of safety in air travel.

The National Safety Council estimates that Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash, while deaths on airplanes are too rare to calculate the odds. Figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation tell a similar story.

The last deadly crash involving a U.S. airliner occurred in February 2009, an unprecedented streak of safety. But planes have crashed elsewhere around the world. And there are other concerns.

Safety regulators are worried about a number of close calls at airports in the past couple years.

This is not the first time that a passenger has opened an emergency door on a plane on the ground. In one incident in Australia last year, a man opened a door and walked out onto the wing of a stationary plane and was arrested after he climbed down to the ground.

Emergency doors are supposed to be able to be opened when a plane is on the ground so passengers can quickly escape if there is a problem.

Passengers can take comfort in the fact that emergency doors are extremely difficult to open during a flight. There are locks that keep a door in place in flight that are armed after takeoff. And once a plane is above 10,000 feet, the air pressure inside the plane holds the door in place. Most of them are designed so that they must be pulled inward before they can be opened.

But in January 2024, a panel plugging the space reserved for an unused emergency door blew off an Alaska Airlines jetliner 16,000 feet above Oregon. Pilots landed the Boeing 737 Max safely, but videos from passengers showed the terrifying scene. The rapid loss of cabin pressure caused oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling, and suction as air rushed from the hole exerted force on people inside the plane.

Investigators have said it appears that four bolts used to help secure the panel were missing after the plane was worked on at a Boeing factory in Renton, Washington.

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — Bob Fernandez thought he’d go dancing and see the world when he joined the U.S. Navy as a 17-year-old high school student in August 1941.

Four months later he found himself shaking from explosions and passing ammunition to artillery crews so his ship’s guns could return fire on Japanese planes bombing Pearl Harbor, a Navy base in Hawaii.

“When those things go off like that, we didn’t know what’s what,” said Fernandez, who is now 100. “We didn’t even know we were in a war.”

Two survivors of the bombing — each 100 or older — are planning to return to Pearl Harbor on Saturday to observe the 83rd anniversary of the attack that thrust the U.S. into World War II. They will join active-duty troops, veterans and members of the public for a remembrance ceremony hosted by the Navy and the National Park Service.

Fernandez was initially planning to join them but had to cancel because of health issues.

The bombing killed more than 2,300 U.S. servicemen. Nearly half, or 1,177, were sailors and Marines on board the USS Arizona, which sank during the battle. The remains of more than 900 Arizona crew members are still entombed on the submerged vessel.

A moment of silence will be held at 7:54 a.m., the same time the attack began eight decades ago. Aircraft in missing man formation are due to fly overhead to break the silence.

Dozens of survivors once joined the annual remembrance but attendance has declined as survivors have aged. Today there are only 16 still living, according to a list maintained by Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Military historian J. Michael Wenger has estimated there were some 87,000 military personnel on Oahu on the day of the attack.

Many laud Pearl Harbor survivors as heroes, but Fernandez doesn’t view himself that way.

“I’m not a hero. I’m just nothing but an ammunition passer,” he told The Associated Press in a phone interview from California, where he now lives with his nephew in Lodi.

Fernandez was working as a mess cook on his ship, the USS Curtiss, the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, and planned to go dancing that night at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki.

He brought sailors coffee and food as he waited tables during breakfast. Then they heard an alarm sound. Through a porthole, Fernandez saw a plane with the red ball insignia painted on Japanese aircraft fly by.

Fernandez rushed down three decks to a magazine room where he and other sailors waited for someone to unlock a door storing 5-inch (12.7-centimeter), 38-caliber shells so they could begin passing them to the ship’s guns.

He has told interviewers over the years that some of his fellow sailors were praying and crying as they heard gunfire up above.

“I felt kind of scared because I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” Fernandez said.

The ship’s guns hit a Japanese plane that crashed into one of its cranes. Shortly after, its guns hit a dive bomber which then slammed into the ship and exploded below deck, setting the hangar and main decks on fire, according to the Navy History and Heritage Command.

Fernandez’s ship, the Curtiss, lost 21 men and nearly 60 of its sailors were injured.

“We lost a lot of good people, you know. They didn’t do nothing,” Fernandez said. “But we never know what’s going to happen in a war.”

After the attack, Fernandez had to sweep up debris. That night, he stood guard with a rifle to make sure no one tried to come aboard. When it came time to rest, he fell asleep next to where the ship’s dead were lying. He only realized that when a fellow sailor woke him up and told him.

After the war, Fernandez worked as a forklift driver at a cannery in San Leandro, California. His wife of 65 years, Mary Fernandez, died in 2014. His oldest son is now 82 and lives in Arizona. Two other sons and a stepdaughter have died.

He has traveled to Hawaii three times to participate in the Pearl Harbor remembrance. This year would have been his fourth trip.

Fernandez still enjoys music and goes dancing at a nearby restaurant once a week if he can. His favorite tune is Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “All of Me,” a song his nephew Joe Guthrie said he still knows by heart.

“The ladies flock to him like moths to a flame,” Guthrie said.

___

Associated Press journalist Terry Chea contributed to this report from Lodi, California.

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Boeing overcharged the Air Force nearly $1 million for spare parts on C-17 cargo planes, including an 8,000% markup for simple lavatory soap dispensers, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general.

The Defense Department’s auditor reviewed prices paid for 46 spare parts on the C-17 from 2018 to 2022 and found that 12 were overpriced and nine seemed reasonably priced. It couldn’t determine the fairness of prices on the other 25 items.

The Office of the Inspector General said it reviewed the soap dispenser prices after getting a hotline tip.

Boeing disputed the findings.

“We are reviewing the report, which appears to be based on an inapt comparison of the prices paid for parts that meet aircraft and contract specifications and designs versus basic commercial items that would not be qualified or approved for use on the C-17,” Boeing said in a statement. “We will continue to work with the OIG and the U.S. Air Force to provide a detailed written response to the report in the coming days.”

The C-17 Globemaster is one of the military’s largest cargo aircraft. It can carry multiple military vehicles, large pallets of humanitarian supplies or, in extreme circumstances, hundreds of people. The Air Force flew C-17s nonstop for two weeks during the hectic August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, evacuating more than 120,000 civilians fleeing the Taliban.

Since 2011, the U.S. government has awarded Boeing more than $30 billion in contracts to purchase needed spare parts for the C-17 and be reimbursed by the Air Force.

Boeing is still trying to recover from financial and reputational damage caused by two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019 of its bestselling airline jet, the 737 Max.

This has been a particularly volatile year for the aerospace giant. It came under renewed scrutiny and federal investigations after a door plug flew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. Federal regulators limited Boeing production of the plane.

In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to defraud the government for misleading regulators who approved pilot training rules for the Max. That plea deal is pending before a federal judge in Texas.

Boeing is on its third chief executive in five years, having hired an outsider who joined the company in August. Last week, Boeing reported a third-quarter loss of more than $6 billion because of charges for several commercial, defense and space programs.

A strike by 33,000 union machinists is now seven weeks old and has crippled production of 737s, 777s and 767 freighters, cutting off much-need cash. New CEO Kelly Ortberg has announced roughly 17,000 layoffs, and the company will issue new stock to raise up to $19 billion to shore up its debt-laden balance sheet.

___

Koenig reported from Dallas.

BOSTON, Mass. — Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who raised their 11 children after he was assassinated and remained dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades thereafter, died on Thursday, her family said. She was 96.

“It is with our hearts full of love that we announce the passing of our amazing grandmother,” Joe Kennedy III posted on X. “She died this morning from complications related to a stroke suffered last week.”

“Along with a lifetime’s work in social justice and human rights, our mother leaves behind nine children, 34 grandchildren and 24 great-great-grandchildren, along with numerous nieces and nephews, all of whom love her dearly,” the family statement said.

President Joe Biden called her “an American icon — a matriarch of optimism and moral courage, an emblem of resilience and service.”

“For over 50 years, Ethel traveled, marched, boycotted, and stood up for human rights around the world with her signature iron will and grace,” Biden said.

The Kennedy matriarch, mother to Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, was one of the last remaining members of a family generation that included President John F. Kennedy. Her family said she had recently enjoyed seeing many of her relatives before falling ill.

A millionaire’s daughter who married the future senator and attorney general in 1950, Ethel Kennedy had endured more death by the age of 40, for the whole world to see, than most people would in a lifetime.

She was by Robert F. Kennedy’s side when he was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, just after winning California’s Democratic presidential primary. Her brother-in-law had been assassinated in Dallas less than five years earlier.

Her parents were killed in a plane crash in 1955, and her brother died in a 1966 crash. Her son David Kennedy overdosed, son Michael Kennedy died in a skiing accident and nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash. Another nephew, Michael Skakel, was found guilty of murder before the Connecticut Supreme Court ultimately vacated his conviction. And in 2019, her granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of an apparent overdose.

“One wonders how much this family must be expected to absorb,” family friend Philip Johnson, founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation, told the Boston Herald after Michael Kennedy’s death.

Ethel Kennedy sustained herself through faith and devotion to family.

“She was a devout Catholic and a daily communicant, and we are comforted in knowing she is reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert F. Kennedy; her children David and Michael; her daughter-in-law Mary; her grandchildren Maeve and Saoirse and her great-grandchildren Gideon and Josie. Please keep our mother in your hearts and prayers,” the family statement said.

Ethel’s mother-in-law, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, initially wondered how she would handle so much tragedy.

“I knew how difficult it was going to be for her to raise that big family without the guiding role and influence that Bobby would have provided,” Rose recalled in her memoir, “Times to Remember.” “And, of course, she realized this too, fully and keenly. Yet she did not give way.”

Ethel Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights soon after her husband’s death and advocated for causes including gun control and human rights. She rarely spoke about her husband’s assassination. When her filmmaker daughter Rory brought it up in the 2012 HBO documentary, “Ethel,” she couldn’t share her grief.

“When we lost Daddy …” she began, then teared up and asked that her youngest daughter “talk about something else.”

Many of her progeny became well known. Daughter Kathleen became lieutenant governor of Maryland; Joseph represented Massachusetts in Congress; Courtney married Paul Hill, who had been wrongfully convicted of an Irish Republican Army bombing; Kerry became a human rights activist and president of the RFK center; Christopher ran for Illinois governor; Max served as a prosecutor in Philadelphia and Douglas reported for Fox News Channel.

Her son Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also became a national figure — first as an environmental lawyer and more recently as a conspiracy theorist spreading false theories about vaccines. He ran for president as an independent after briefly challenging Biden, and his name remained on ballots in multiple states after he suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump.

Ethel Kennedy did not comment publicly on her son’s actions, although several other family members denounced him.

Decades earlier, she seemed to thrive on her in-laws’ rising power, enthusiastically backing the 1960 campaign and hosting some of the era’s most well-attended parties at their Hickory Hill estate in McLean, Virginia, including one where historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. was pushed fully clothed into the swimming pool. In the Kennedy spirit, she also was a highly competitive tennis player.

“Petite and peppy Ethel, who doesn’t look one bit the outdoorsy type, considers outdoor activity so important for the children that she has arranged her busy Cabinet-wife schedule so she can personally take them on two daily outings,” The Washington Post reported in 1962.

Accompanying her husband on a round-the-world goodwill tour, she said it was important for Americans to meet ordinary people overseas.

“People have a distinct liking for Americans,” she told the Post. “But the Communists have been so vocal, it was a surprise for some Asians to hear America’s point of view. It is good for Americans to travel and get our viewpoint across.”

She divided her time between homes in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida, after Hickory Hill, which they bought from John and Jackie Kennedy in 1957, was sold in 2009 for $8.25 million.

Born Ethel Skakel on April 11, 1928, she grew up in a 31-room English country manor house in Greenwich, Connecticut, as the sixth of seven children of coal magnate George and Ann Brannack Skakel. She met Robert Kennedy through his sister Jean, her roommate at Manhattanville College.

The newlyweds moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where he finished his last year of law school at the University of Virginia, and helped expand her world view by introducing her to people like Ralph Bunche, the first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize. They decided the safest place for him to stay during his visit was in their home.

“He was so charming and non-complaining, but they did throw things at our house all night long. It was so unthinkable and outrageous, but you got a little taste of what Black people in our country had to go through at that time,” she said in the documentary.

Robert Kennedy became chief counsel to the Senate Select Committee in 1957, and then was appointed attorney general by his brother in 1960.

She supported his successful 1964 campaign for the U.S. Senate in New York and his subsequent presidential bid. Pregnant with their 11th child when he was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan, her look of shock and horror was captured in images that remained indelible decades later.

The assassination traumatized the family, especially son David Kennedy, just 12 years old when he watched the news in a hotel room. He never recovered, struggling with addiction for years before overdosing in 1984.

In 2021, she said Sirhan should not be released from prison, a view not shared by some others in her family. Two years later, a California panel denied him parole.

Although Ethel Kennedy was linked to several men after her husband’s death, most notably the singer Andy Williams, she never remarried.

On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., she visited Indianapolis, where a monument commemorates the speech her husband gave that night in 1968, credited with averting rioting in the city.

“Of all the Kennedy women, she was the one I would end up admiring the most,” Harry Belafonte would write of her. “She wasn’t playacting. She looked at you and immediately got what you were about. Often in the coming years, when Bobby was balking at something we wanted him to do for the movement, I’d take my case to Ethel. ‘We have to talk to him,’ she’d say, and she would.”

In 2008, she joined brother-in-law Ted Kennedy and niece Caroline Kennedy in endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, likening him to her late husband. She later went to the Obama White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom and meet Pope Francis. Obama called her “a dear friend with a passion for justice, an irrepressible spirit, and a great sense of humor.”

“She touched the lives of countless people around the world with her generosity and grace, and was an emblem of enduring faith and hope, even in the face of unimaginable grief,” Obama said on social media, one of many high-profile eulogies.

Obama and former President Bill Clinton held her hands as they climbed stairs to lay a wreath at President Kennedy’s grave site on the 50th anniversary of his death. Clinton remembered her on Thursday as a “fierce fighter for justice and equality” who built “one of the most effective human rights organizations in the world.”

The center she founded still advances human rights through litigation, advocacy, education and inspiration, giving annual awards to journalists, authors and others who have made significant contributions to human rights.

She also was active in the Coalition of Gun Control, Special Olympics, and the Earth Conservation Corps. And she showed up in person, participating in a 2016 demonstration in support of higher pay for farmworkers in Florida and a 2018 hunger strike against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

“She could be found anywhere human dignity was at stake, from picket lines to prisons, on every corner of the map,” Clinton said. “She was fearless and indefatigable, a true force of nature, guided by the teachings of her faith that call upon all of us to serve others.”