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Tag: aviation security

  • US military to conduct additional interviews with witnesses of Kabul airport bombing | CNN Politics

    US military to conduct additional interviews with witnesses of Kabul airport bombing | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The senior US general for the Middle East has ordered additional interviews be conducted regarding the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, which killed 13 US service members during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US military announced Friday.

    The additional interviews are the result of an internal review ordered by the commander of US Central Command Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, who directed US Army Central commander Lt. Gen. Pat Frank in June to review public testimony about the bombing for any new information not included in CENTCOM’s previous report.

    “The purpose of these interviews is to ensure we do our due diligence with the new information that has come to light, that the relevant voices are fully heard and that we take those accounts and examine them seriously and thoroughly so the facts are laid to bare,” said a statement from CENTCOM spokesman Michael Lawhorn.

    Though the interviews don’t constitute a formal reopening of the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attack, this represents an effort by the military to re-examine testimony after members of those killed have expressed anger and dissatisfaction with the original review.

    It’s unclear if the new interviews will include Afghans who witnessed the blast, which killed more than 170 Afghan civilians.

    When pressed on whether the interviews would include Afghans, Lawhorn said it would be “up to the Supplementary Review Team to decide who to interview.”

    “I cannot be explicit about anything that the Supplementary Review Team may or may not decide to review in the future,” Lawhorn said.

    CENTCOM released a lengthy after-action review last year that included statements from more than 100 witnesses. Many service members interviewed gave conflicting recollections about the person they were on the look-out for – some said no description seemed to fit clearly, or that they didn’t see anyone fitting the description they’d been given before the blast, while others said they believed they saw the person in question in the crowd.

    Among the differing recollections of what happened on August 26, 2021, is testimony from Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who was seriously injured in the blast and who has said he was not interviewed in CENTCOM’s original investigation.

    Vargas-Andrews testified before Congress in March that Marines had requested permission to shoot who they believed to be the suicide bomber, but never got permission.

    “Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety,” Vargas-Andrews said.

    Lawhorn’s statement said that Vargas-Andrews’ public comments “made statements about his experience that contained new information not previously shared by any other witness.” Frank’s review also found that additional service members were not interviewed due to “their immediate medical evacuation in the aftermath of the attack.”

    “These interviews will seek to determine whether those not previously interviewed due to their immediate medical evacuation possess new information not previously considered, and whether such new information, if any, would affect the results of the investigation, and to ensure their personal accounts are captured for historical documentation,” he added.

    The news comes just weeks after Gold Star family members of some of the 13 US troops who were killed in the Abbey Gate bombing demanded answers before Congress, saying they did not feel that they’d been given the full truth about what happened to their loved ones.

    Lawhorn’s statement said that the next of kin of the 13 service members who were killed “are currently being informed of the supplementary interviews.”

    The process for the interviews will begin “in the coming days,” Lawhorn said. Kurilla has requested an update on those interviews within 90 days, but has directed Frank to “take whatever time is necessary to ensure each of the witnesses not interviewed as part of the investigation have an opportunity to share their experience and perspective.”

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  • Emergency evacuation slide from United flight falls into neighborhood near Chicago O’Hare International Airport | CNN

    Emergency evacuation slide from United flight falls into neighborhood near Chicago O’Hare International Airport | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A United Airlines Boeing 767 plane lost its emergency evacuation slide in mid-air Monday – and it ended up in the backyard of a home near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, officials and a witness said.

    Patrick Devitt lives in the neighborhood where the slide came down, several miles from the runways at O’Hare. He told CNN affiliate WLS his father-in-law and son were inside their home and heard a boom in their backyard around 12:15 p.m. CT. Devitt’s father-in-law walked outside, saw the slide in the backyard and told Devitt’s son to call 911.

    Devitt was on his way home from work at the time. When he got to the house, he dragged the slide from his backyard to the front of the home. He said the large piece of equipment damaged the roof of the home and a kitchen window screen, WLS reported.

    “When it’s all stretched out,” Devitt told the Chicago station, “it’s larger than a small car. It’s a very, very big piece of equipment that fell.”

    Maintenance workers at O’Hare discovered the plane was missing its slide after it landed, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. United Airlines said, “We immediately contacted the FAA and are working with our team to better understand the circumstances around this matter.”

    The Chicago Police Department said it responded to the incident in the 4700 block of North Chester Avenue but deferred questions about the investigation to the FAA, the lead agency.

    In 2019, a slide fell off a Delta flight landing at Boston’s Logan International Airport. It, too, fell in a residential area. There were no injuries.

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  • Patriots’ Jack Jones arrested after two loaded guns found in carry-on luggage, police say | CNN

    Patriots’ Jack Jones arrested after two loaded guns found in carry-on luggage, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    New England Patriots cornerback Jack Jones was arrested Friday at Boston Logan International Airport after two firearms were discovered in his carry-on luggage, according to Massachusetts State Police.

    The Transportation Security Administration issued a press release saying TSA officers had found two loaded firearms and ammunition in a Los Angeles-bound male passenger’s luggage.

    The TSA, which did not identify the passenger, said it notified police after detecting the weapons “during the routine X-ray screening of carry-on luggage at the airport’s security checkpoint.”

    Police said Jones was charged with two counts each of the following offenses: possession of a concealed weapon in a secure area of an airport, possession of ammunition without a firearm identification card, unlawful possession of a firearm, carrying a loaded firearm, and possession of a large-capacity feeding device.

    Under Massachusetts law, any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds of ammunition is considered “large capacity.”

    Jones’ bail was set at $50,000. It was lowered to $30,000, which Jones posted, police say.

    He was released from custody and is scheduled to be arraigned in East Boston District Court next week.

    CNN has reached out to Jones’ representatives for comment.

    The Patriots confirmed the arrest in a statement, saying, “We have been notified that Jack Jones was arrested at Logan Airport earlier yesterday. We are in the process of gathering more information and will not be commenting further at this time.”

    New England selected the cornerback out of Arizona State University in the fourth round (121st overall) of the 2022 NFL Draft.

    In his rookie season, Jones had 30 combined tackles and two interceptions in 13 games.

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  • Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg cites ‘uptick’ in aviation incidents at FAA safety summit reviewing ‘serious close calls’ | CNN

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg cites ‘uptick’ in aviation incidents at FAA safety summit reviewing ‘serious close calls’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday there has been an “uptick” in recent aviation incidents and called on participants at a Federal Aviation Administration safety summit to help find the “root causes” of the issues.

    “We are particularly concerned because we have seen an uptick in serious close calls,” Buttigieg said in his opening remarks, referring to a series of near collisions on runways across the US.

    The summit comes after the FAA said it was investigating another close call between commercial airliners. The most recent close call was at Reagan National Airport near Washington, DC – the seventh since the start of this year.

    On March 7, Republic Airways Flight 4736 crossed a runway, without clearance, that United Airlines Flight 2003 was using for takeoff, according to a preliminary review, the FAA said. The United pilot had just been cleared for takeoff, the agency said.

    “An air traffic controller noticed the situation and immediately canceled the takeoff clearance for the United flight,” the FAA said.

    The FAA safety summit in McLean, Virginia, is the first of its kind since 2009 and kicks off a sweeping safety review the agency is conducting in the wake of the incursions.

    “Today is about the entire system, which means it’s about all of us,” Buttigieg said at the summit’s opening on Wednesday. The summit includes safety investigators, industry representatives, union leaders, and others.

    Buttigieg said Wednesday’s summit is the first in a series of coordinated events the FAA will conduct to find out what’s working well and what “new steps” need to be taken to ensure safety.

    Air travel has had a strong safety record and is the safest form of travel, Buttigieg said, but “we dare not” take that record for granted.

    The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board told participants in the summit that the safety agency has made seven recommendations on runway collisions that have not been enacted.

    “One is 23 years old and still appropriate today on technology warning pilots of an impending collision,” chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said.

    “How many times are we going to have to issue the same recommendations over and over and over again?” she asked.

    Homendy said she’s already found one common issue with the six runway incursions they are investigating. In each case, the cockpit voice recorder, known as one of the black boxes, was overwritten, preventing investigators from hearing what took place on the flight deck.

    “All federal agencies here today need to ask: Are we doing everything possible to make our skies safer? We’ve been asking ourselves that very question at the NTSB,” she said.

    Nick Calio, president and CEO of Airlines for America, the trade association representing the major airlines, told the summit, “There’s constant self-evaluation always going on.”

    Calio said the airlines are looking at their data to try to find ways to make aviation safer so that close calls on runways, like those under investigation by the NTSB, don’t happen.

    “I don’t want to speculate a lot on what’s happened there, because they’re all under investigation. And we’re all trying to determine what is going on. Is this a trend? Is this a pattern?” he said.

    Rich Santa, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union, cited a lack of staffing in air traffic control towers as a potential culprit.

    “Unfortunately, we have a staffing issue right now, as air traffic controllers. We are 1,200 certified professional controllers less now than we were 10 years ago,” he said at the summit. “It’s time for us to accurately and adequately staff the facilities.”

    Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen told the summit the agency is “continuing to hire” and is on pace to hire 1,500 controllers this year and another 1,800 next year.

    The NTSB is investigating the string of runway incursions involving commercial airliners. The near-collisions on US runways also have prompted federal safety investigators to open a sweeping review.

    Last month, a Southwest passenger jet and a FedEx cargo plane came as close as 100 feet from colliding at an Austin, Texas, airport, and it was a pilot – not air traffic controllers – who averted disaster, according to Homendy.

    In January, there was an alarming close call similar to this latest one. A Delta Air Lines flight was taking off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport when air traffic controllers “noticed another aircraft crossing the runway in front of the departing jetliner,” the FAA said in a statement.

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  • Marine injured in Kabul airport bombing recounts ‘catastrophic’ US withdrawal from Afghanistan at House hearing | CNN Politics

    Marine injured in Kabul airport bombing recounts ‘catastrophic’ US withdrawal from Afghanistan at House hearing | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    US Marine Corps Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews can remember in specific detail the moment that a suicide bomber attacked Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate in August 2021 amid the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    “A flash and a massive wave of pressure. I’m thrown 4 feet onto the ground but instantly knew what had happened. I opened my eyes to Marines dead or unconscious lying around me. A crowd of hundreds immediately vanished in front of me. And my body was catastrophically wounded with 100 to 150 ball bearings now in it,” he recalled.

    Vargas-Andrews, 25, offered emotional and detailed testimony of the days leading up to the bombing, which took the lives of 13 US service members and more than 100 Afghans, as part of a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the evacuation from Afghanistan.

    The Biden administration’s frenzied withdrawal after two decades of US involvement in the war has come under immense scrutiny by Republican lawmakers, including the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, who has vowed to investigate the matter.

    However, those accusations in Congress about who is responsible for the chaotic final weeks of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan have fallen largely along party lines, with Republican lawmakers pointing fingers at the Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers casting blame on the Trump administration for the deal that set the US withdrawal into motion.

    In a statement to CNN Wednesday, White House spokesperson for oversight Ian Sams also pointed to the deal President Joe Biden “inherited” from Trump and said the last administration “failed to establish an evacuation plan and slowed down processing of special visas for our Afghan allies.”

    “Instead of returning the U.S. to active combat with the Taliban and putting even more of our troops’ lives at risk, President Biden made the tough decision to finally end the 20-year war in Afghanistan, bring our troops home, and safely evacuate tens upon tens of thousands of Americans and Afghan allies,” Sams said. He added that the withdrawal put “the U.S. in a stronger position to lead the world and address the challenges of the future, while continuing to welcome our Afghan allies and maintaining our ability to deal with terrorist threats in the region.”

    Wednesday’s hearing featured the testimonies of two service members who were on the ground in Afghanistan during those final weeks: Vargas-Andrews and US Army Specialist Aidan Gunderson. In addition, three people involved with groups who worked to evacuate Afghans – Francis Hoang from Allied Airlift 21, retired Lt. Col. David Scott Mann from Task Force Pineapple and Peter Lucier from Team America Relief – and immigration lawyer Camille Mackler, who worked to try to get the administration to begin relocating vulnerable Afghans well before the fall of Kabul, all served as witnesses.

    Vargas-Andrews described the withdrawal as a “catastrophe,” telling lawmakers that “there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence.” He painted a picture of days of chaos and violence toward Afghans who were trying to flee the Taliban, described the US State Department as “not prepared to be at” the Kabul airport, claimed that threat warnings were disregarded by higher command on the day of the attack.

    Vargas-Andrews described the horrific scenes he witnessed from his post at Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), telling lawmakers that “Afghans were brutalized and tortured by the Taliban.”

    “Some Afghans turned away from HKIA tried to kill themselves on the razor wire in front of us that we used as a deterrent,” he said. “Countless Afghans were murdered by the Taliban 155 yards in front of our position day and night.”

    “We communicated the atrocities to our chain of command and intel assets but nothing came of it,” he said.

    Vargas-Andrews said on the day of the August 26 suicide attack, he spotted a man in the crowd who fit the description of “a suicide bomber in the vicinity of and nearing Abbey Gate.”

    “Over the communication network we passed that there was a potential threat and an IED attack imminent. This was as serious as it could get,” he said, noting that he asked for permission to shoot, but “our battalion commander said, and I quote, ‘I don’t know,’ end quote.”

    “Myself and my team leader asked very harshly, ‘Well, who does? Because this is your responsibility, sir.’ He again replied he did not know but would find out. We received no update and never got our answer. Eventually the individual disappeared. To this day, we believe he was a suicide bomber,” he said.

    “Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety,” he said.

    Beyond the suicide attack, witnesses spoke about the mental health toll that the botched evacuation has had on US veterans of the war in Afghanistan.

    Mann, the retired lieutenant colonel, said he had a friend who took his own life, whose wife said “that the Afghan abandonment reactivated all the demons that he had managed to put behind him from hard time and Afghanistan together.”

    “And he just couldn’t find his way out of the darkness of that moral injury,” he said.

    They also spoke broadly about their work to try to aid the Afghans who worked alongside US troops during the war, the “majority” of whom were left behind in the evacuation, and the need to continue to work to help them.

    “I and thousands of others received frantic pleas for help from our Afghan allies whose lives were in peril,” said Hoang from Allied Airlift 21. “Thousands of us guided tired and scared Afghan families through crowds and Taliban checkpoints. The weight of this work was crushing. We left jobs, drained savings, reopened old wounds.”

    “We looked in horror as our screens filled with images of violence and desperation outside the gates of Kabul airport. We wept as we listened to messages left by children pleading for our help. Nine times out of 10 our efforts failed. But every success was a family saved, a promise kept,” he said.

    “It is our turn to summon the courage to fill our commitment to the Afghan allies still left behind,” Hoang said.

    Mackler, the immigration lawyer, told lawmakers that “what happened in August of 2021 was the product of decades long of inaction and systemic failures that we can no longer ignore.”

    “To ensure that the actions we heard today were not in vain, we must use this moment to create and implement better solutions,” she said, and called on Congress to take steps like passing the Afghan Adjustment Act.

    “After all, as we’ve been told, those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. We saw that in Afghanistan. We tried to learn the lessons from Vietnam and we were ignored, and we cannot allow a future generation to go through this as well,” Mackler said.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • All flights grounded at airport near Penn State University over suspicious device, 100 passengers bused to campus | CNN

    All flights grounded at airport near Penn State University over suspicious device, 100 passengers bused to campus | CNN

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    CNN
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    All flights were grounded at University Park Airport in Pennsylvania Friday as authorities investigated a suspicious device in a checked bag, forcing about 100 passengers to be bused out of the area and the airport to close until Saturday, officials said.

    The airport in State College, located less than five miles from the Penn State University campus, was closed to air traffic and passengers while an explosives device team and local police examined the contents of the bag, which was checked on a flight en route to Chicago, Penn State University Police and Public Safety said in a statement.

    The “suspicious” contents were later determined to not be an explosive device, Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Marie Powers told CNN late Friday.

    The item had been detected by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at the airport, according to TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein. Local police officers and FBI officials were also on site, she said.

    “The immediate area was evacuated and a perimeter established,” Farbstein said in a statement, adding bomb technicians would be looking at the bag and its contents.

    The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop for the airport “due to security.” The airport will reopen early Saturday morning, police said.

    The airport closure took place as Penn State students were gearing up for their Spring Break travel plans next week. Buses from the university came to the airport to transport about 100 passengers to the campus, where they were offered shelter and given food, according to police.

    The University Park Airport calls itself “a home town airport with a world of destinations,” according to its Facebook page. It says four airlines – Allegiant, Delta, United, and American airlines – offer regularly scheduled flights to and from major hub cities including Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington/Dulles.

    Earlier in the day, the general passenger terminal at the airport was evacuated “out of an abundance of caution,” police said. There were no incoming or outgoing flights scheduled when the evacuation took place.

    The investigation at the airport comes just days after federal agents arrested a Pennsylvania man after he allegedly tried to bring explosives in his suitcase on a flight from Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown to Florida.

    Marc Muffley, 40, faces two charges, according to a federal complaint, including possession of an explosive in an airport and possessing or attempting to place an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft.

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  • Republican lawmaker indicates Congress will investigate TSA no-fly list breach | CNN Politics

    Republican lawmaker indicates Congress will investigate TSA no-fly list breach | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    A Republican congressman who serves on the House Homeland Security Committee said Congress “will be coming for answers” after a hacker revealed the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list of known or suspected terrorists was accessible on an unsecured computer server.

    “The entire US no-fly list – with 1.5 million+ entries – was found on an unsecured server by a Swiss hacker,” Bishop said in a tweet. “Besides the fact that the list is a civil liberties nightmare, how was this info so easily accessible?”

    The North Carolina lawmaker, who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, indicated Congress will investigate the data exposure revealed on Friday.

    “We’ll be coming for answers,” Bishop claimed, possibly making the breach the latest in a long list of inquiries House Republicans have pledged to launch now that they have control of the lower chamber.

    CNN has contacted the committee for comment.

    In an earlier statement to CNN, the TSA said Friday it is “aware of a potential cybersecurity incident, and we are investigating in coordination with our federal partners.”

    The data was sitting on the public internet in an unsecured computer server hosted by CommuteAir, a regional airline based in Ohio, according to the hacker claiming the discovery, CNN previously reported.

    The hacker, who also describes herself as a cybersecurity researcher, previously told CNN she notified CommuteAir of the data exposure.

    The regional airline said in a statement that the data accessed by the hacker was “an outdated 2019 version of the federal no-fly list” that included names and birthdates.

    The no-fly list is a set of known, or suspected, terrorists, who are barred from flying to or in the US. The screening program grew out of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and involves airlines comparing their passenger records with federal data to keep dangerous people off planes.

    CNN previously reported that CommuteAir, which exclusively operates 50-seat regional flights for United Airlines from Washington Dulles, Houston and Denver hubs, said it took the affected computer server offline after a “member of the security research community” had contacted the airline.

    The Daily Dot, a tech news outlet, first reported on the supposed data breach.

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  • Montgomery, Alabama, airport worker dies on ramp in incident involving American Airlines regional jet | CNN

    Montgomery, Alabama, airport worker dies on ramp in incident involving American Airlines regional jet | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A worker at the Montgomery Regional Airport in Alabama died Saturday in an incident on the ramp, the Federal Aviation Administration said Saturday.

    The Montgomery Regional Airport said in a statement an American Airlines/Piedmont Airlines ground crew employee was “involved in a fatality” around 3 p.m.

    “We are saddened to hear about the tragic loss of a team member of the AA/Piedmont Airlines,” said Wade A. Davis, the airport’s executive director. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family during this difficult time.”

    American Airlines said in a statement it was “devastated by the accident involving a team member,” adding, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and our local team members. We are focused on ensuring that all involved have the support they need during this difficult time.”

    All inbound and outbound flights were grounded for more than four hours Saturday afternoon, but the airport said it returned to normal operations as of 8:30 p.m.

    The victim was not named, and the circumstances of the death were not immediately released. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will both investigate.

    The flight, operated by regional carrier Envoy Air, was scheduled to depart Montgomery for Dallas-Fort Worth Saturday afternoon, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.com.

    CNN reached out to Envoy Air for further information Saturday.

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  • Fire on board a JetBlue plane forces the evacuation of more than 160 passengers at New York’s JFK airport | CNN

    Fire on board a JetBlue plane forces the evacuation of more than 160 passengers at New York’s JFK airport | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A fire on board a JetBlue Airways plane forced more than 160 passengers to evacuate using emergency slides at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday, fire department officials said.

    The incident – which happened shortly after the flight from Barbados landed at the airport – may have started due to an electronic device and is under investigation, according to JetBlue.

    “On Saturday, JetBlue flight 662 with service from Bridgetown, Barbados (BGI) was evacuated shortly after landing at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) due to reports of a customer’s malfunctioning electronic device or battery,” company spokesperson Derek Dombrowski said in a statement to CNN.

    The New York City Fire Department reported a plane fire around 9 p.m. at the airport’s Terminal 5, saying the regional Port Authority agency evacuated the JetBlue plane.

    A total of 167 people were evacuated using emergency slides, the FDNY said. Five passengers had minor injuries.

    “Safety is always our number one priority,” Dombrowski said, adding JetBlue is coordinating with officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

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