World

PHILADELPHIA — A small jet with six people onboard crashed into a busy Philadelphia neighborhood Friday, officials said, marking another US aviation disaster after a passenger plane and a military helicopter collided midair in Washington earlier this week.

Video footage appeared to show the twin-engine plane descending at a sharp angle towards a residential area, sparking a huge fireball upon impact and showering wreckage over homes and vehicles.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the aircraft was a Learjet 55 — an American-French business jet — that had taken off shortly before from Northeast Philadelphia Airport bound for Branson, Missouri.

The crash happened just after 6:00 pm (2300 GMT).

A young girl who had been in the United States for medical care, her mother, and members of the flight and medical crews accompanying her onboard were killed in the crash, the children's hospital that treated her told AFP.

"The patient had received care from Shriners Children's Philadelphia and was being transported back to her home country in Mexico on a contracted air ambulance when the crash happened," said Mel Bower, a spokesman for Shriners Children's.

The aircraft's operator Jet Rescue Air Ambulance confirmed in a statement to US media that there were two passengers and four crew, adding, "At this time, we cannot confirm any survivors."

Dozens of emergency workers were on the scene outside Roosevelt Mall, a strip mall in Northeast Philadelphia with retailers and food outlets.

US President Donald Trump on Friday took to his Truth Social platform and said he was "sad" to see "more souls lost" in the Philadelphia tragedy. He praised first responders, adding: "God Bless you all."

Several witnesses told local TV crews that they saw body parts in or near the wreckage, as Philadelphia City Council member Mike Driscoll said he feared residents or others on the ground may have been killed.

"It doesn't look good. And it's a sad situation here," he told CNN.

The FAA said it was launching an investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board.

Washington tragedy 

Both agencies are already probing the deadliest US air disaster in almost a quarter century, after a passenger jet operated by an American Airlines subsidiary collided with a Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday.

The airliner with 64 people onboard was coming in for a night landing at Reagan National Airport in Washington — just a few miles from the White House — when it collided with the US Army helicopter on a training mission.

Divers were scouring Friday for the remaining bodies in the frigid Potomac River, after having pulled at least 41 victims from the water.

Investigators on Friday found the helicopter's black box after having already retrieved the cockpit voice and flight data recorder from the Bombardier jet operated by an American Airlines subsidiary.

Officials are confident data can be fully extracted from the recorders, said NTSB member Todd Inman, adding an investigation was still being carried out.

However, the lack of clarity over the accident's cause did not deter Trump's politicized commentary.

He appeared to place blame on the military helicopter in a post on the Truth Social platform, saying it was "flying too high, by a lot."

This followed a news conference Thursday where the Republican pinned the blame for the crash on his Democratic predecessors Joe Biden and Barack Obama, claiming without evidence they had hired the wrong people due to non-discrimination initiatives known as DEI.

Chesley Sullenberger, who famously landed a stricken passenger plane on New York's Hudson River in 2009, told network MSNBC he was "disgusted" but "not surprised" by Trump's rhetoric.

Aviation experts, meanwhile, homed in on whether the helicopter crew could see through military night-vision goggles and whether the Reagan National Airport control tower was understaffed.

Interviews of staff who were in the control tower at the time of the crash have already begun, the NTSB said.

The collision was the first major crash in the United States since 2009, and the deadliest since an American Airlines jet crash in Belle Harbor, New York in 2001 that killed all 260 aboard.

Among those on Wednesday's doomed airliner were several US skaters and coaches, and Russian couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the 1994 world pairs title.

Two Chinese citizens and a Filipino were also among the victims.

BERLIN — Protesters in Germany on Thursday rallied against the conservative CDU Party to decry its cooperation with the far-right AfD in pushing through parliament a motion to demand a crackdown on immigration.

Centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Greens and multiple civil society and church groups denounced the vote as a breach of a taboo in post-war Germany against any cooperation with extremist parties.

About 6,000 people rallied outside CDU Party headquarters, the Konrad Adenauer House in Berlin, police said, to voice their opposition to the breach of the "firewall" that had so far isolated the anti-immigration AfD party.

The rally organisers, the alliance "Together Against the Right", said that 13,000 people had taken part.

"It is unbelievable that the CDU is helping right-wing extremists gain political power," said protest co-organiser Carolin Moser.

She argued that the CDU, instead of shunning the far-right party, "is rolling out the red carpet" for them and had helped make "the AfD's right-wing extremism socially acceptable".

A group of about 30 activists stormed a smaller CDU party bureau in the capital's Charlottenburg district and vandalised furniture, but without causing injuries, said police.

Police said they filed three reports on charges including property damage and trespassing.

Thousands also took to the streets in the eastern city of Dresden, where CDU Party leader Friedrich Merz was holding a campaign event ahead of February 23 elections.

Participants at the street demonstrations held up signs that read "Shame on you", "Friedrich Merz is a security risk for our democracy" and "We are the firewall".

Merz said that "part of our freedom is that we are of course allowed to demonstrate".

"But those who are blocking trams this evening, damaging the CDU district offices and paralysing the Adenauer House in Berlin are overdoing this right to demonstrate."

He urged the Social Democrats and Greens "to call for moderation, for restraint, and for us in the political centre of our country to reach agreement on the key issues that we have to discuss and decide together".

WASHINGTON — Divers pulled bodies from the icy waters of Washington's Potomac River on Thursday after a US military helicopter collided midair with a passenger plane carrying 64 people, with officials saying there were likely no survivors.

As dawn broke over the crash site just five kilometres from the White House, wreckage from both aircraft protruded from the water and emergency vessels and diving teams scoured the area.

"We are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation," Washington Fire Chief John Donnelly told a news conference at Reagan National Airport.

"We don't believe there are any survivors," he said, adding that 28 bodies had been recovered so far — including one from the helicopter.

At least 300 first responders were involved in the operation — conducted in pitch darkness for several hours — with recovery teams discovering debris a mile downriver.

"These responders found extremely frigid conditions, they found heavy wind, they found ice on the water, and they operated all night," Donnelly said.

There were no details on the cause of the crash, with transport officials saying both aircraft were on standard flight patterns on a clear night with good visibility.

"Do I think this was preventable? Absolutely," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told the news conference.

Dramatic audio from air traffic controllers showed them repeatedly asking the helicopter if it had the passenger jet "in sight," and then just before the crash telling it to "pass behind" the plane.

'A fireball and

it was gone' 

"I just saw a fireball and it was gone," one air traffic controller was heard telling another after communication with the helicopter was cut.

Both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River, and the fuselage of the passenger jet was broken into three sections.

US Figure Skating said several athletes, coaches and officials were aboard the flight, while officials in Moscow confirmed married Russian couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov — who won the 1994 world pairs title — were also on the jet.

The Bombardier plane operated by an American Airlines subsidiary, with 60 passengers and four crew on board, was approaching the airport at around 9:00 pm (2:00 GMT) after flying from Wichita, Kansas, when the collision happened.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Black Hawk chopper had "a fairly experienced crew that was doing a required annual night evaluation".

"They did have night vision goggles," he added.

Witness Ari Schulman was driving home when he saw "the plane and it looked fine, normal. It was right about to head over land".

"Three seconds later, and at that point it was banked all the way to the right... I could see the underside of it, it was lit up a very bright yellow," Schulman told CNN.

Trump criticises 

traffic control 

President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak on the matter at 11:00 am (16:00 GMT), but in the meantime posted a critical take on social media.

"The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

"Why didn't the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn't the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!"

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the grounding of all planes at Reagan National, with operations set to resume at 11:00 am (16:00 GMT).

American Airlines' chief executive Robert Isom expressed "deep sorrow" and said the plane pilot had six years' experience.

US Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas called the collision "nothing short of a nightmare".

Crowded airspace 

It was unclear how a passenger plane with modern collision-avoidance technology and traffic controllers could collide with a military aircraft over the nation's capital.

The airspace around Washington is often crowded, with planes coming in low over the city to land at Reagan National and helicopters — military, civilian and carrying senior politicians or officials — buzzing about both day and night.

The same airport was the scene of a deadly crash in 1982 when a Boeing 737 plummeted after takeoff, hitting a bridge and crashing through the ice into the Potomac. Seventy-eight people died.

PARIS — The world's biggest iceberg, more than twice the size of London, could drift towards a remote island where a scientist warns it risks disrupting feeding for baby penguins and seals.

The gigantic wall of ice is moving slowly from Antarctica on a potential collision course with South Georgia, a crucial wildlife breeding ground in the South Atlantic.

Satellite imagery suggested that unlike previous "mega bergs" this rogue was not crumbling into smaller chunks as it plodded through the Southern Ocean, Andrew Meijers, a physical oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey, told AFP on Friday.

He said predicting its exact course was difficult but prevailing currents suggested the colossus would reach the shallow continental shelf around South Georgia in two to four weeks.

But what might happen next is anyone's guess, he said.

It could avoid the shelf and get carried into open water beyond South Georgia, a British overseas territory some 1,400 kilometres east of the Falkland Islands.

Or it could strike the sloping bottom and get stuck for months or break up into pieces.

Meijers said this scenario could seriously impede seals and penguins trying to feed and raise their young on the island.

"Icebergs have grounded there in the past and that has caused significant mortality to penguin chicks and seal pups," he said.

 'White wall'

Roughly 3,500 square kilometres across, the world's biggest and oldest iceberg, known as A23a, calved from the Antarctic shelf in 1986.

It remained stuck for over 30 years before finally breaking free in 2020, its lumbering journey north sometimes delayed by ocean forces that kept it spinning in place.

Meijers, who encountered the iceberg face to face, while leading a scientific mission in late 2023, described "a huge white cliff, 40 or 50 metres high, that stretches from horizon to horizon".

"It's just like this white wall. It's very sort of Game of Thrones-esque, actually," he said, referring to the dark fantasy series.

A23a has followed roughly the same path as previous massive icebergs, passing the east side of the Antarctica Peninsula through the Weddell Sea along a route called "iceberg alley".

Weighing a little under a trillion tonnes, this monster block of freshwater was being whisked along by the world's most powerful ocean "jet stream”,  the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

Raul Cordero from Chile's University of Santiago, who is also part of the National Antarctic Research Committee, said he was confident the iceberg would sidestep South Georgia.

"The island acts as an obstacle for ocean currents and therefore usually diverts the water long before it reaches the island," he said.

"The iceberg is moved by that water flow, so the chances of it hitting are not that high," though chunks could, he said.

Another scientist, glaciologist Soledad Tiranti currently on an Argentinean exploration voyage in the Antarctic, said that icebergs such as A23a "are so deep that before reaching an island or mainland they generally get stuck" on the seabed.

 Icy obstacle

It is summer in South Georgia and resident penguins and seals along its southern coastline are foraging in the frosty waters to bring back food to fatten their young.

"If the iceberg parks there, it'll either block physically where they feed from, or they'll have to go around it," said Meijers.

"That burns a huge amount of extra energy for them, so that's less energy for the pups and chicks, which causes increased mortality."

The seal and penguin populations on South Georgia have already been having a "bad season" with an outbreak of bird flu "and that [iceberg] would make it significantly worse," he said.

As A23a ultimately melted it could seed the water with nutrients that encourage phytoplankton growth, feeding whales and other species, and allowing scientists to study how such blooms absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

While icebergs are natural phenomena, Meijers said the rate at which they were being lost from Antarctica was increasing, likely due to human induced climate change.

MOSCOW |— The first Russian official delegation to visit Syria since the toppling of long-term Moscow ally Bashar Al Assad has arrived in Damascus, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday.

The Russian delegation due to meet the new leadership of the war-ravaged country included deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who is also Putin's special envoy on the Middle East and Africa, as well as Alexander Lavrentyev, the president's special envoy on Syria, the RIA Novosti agency reported.

It said it was "the first visit by Russian officials to Damascus" since Assad fled in December in the face of a lightning rebel advance across the country.

A report by RT Arabic said the delegation is set to meet Syria's new leader Ahmed Al Sharaa, Foreign Minister Asaad Al Shaibani and other officials.

Russia's Bogdanov was a diplomat in Syria in the 1980s and 1990s and speaks Arabic, according to the foreign ministry website. Lavrentyev took part in previous negotiations with Assad.

Sharaa leads an Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir Al Sham [HTS] that is banned in Russia as a "terrorist" organisation.

The organisation is rooted in Al-Qaeda's Syria branch but has more recently adopted a more moderate tone.

RT Arabic reported that Bogdanov described the visit as aimed at strengthening historic ties based on shared interests, and underlined Russia's hopes for Syrian unity and independence.

 'Deep strategic interests'

Sharaa in December noted the "deep strategic interests between Russia and Syria" in an interview with the Al-Arabiya TV channel.

"All Syria's arms are of Russian origin, and many power plants are managed by Russian experts... We do not want Russia to leave Syria in the way that some wish," Sharaa added.

Ukrainian diplomats visited Syria's new rulers in December, with Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga urging Sharaa to expel Russia from the country.

"We believe that from a strategic point of view, the removal of Russia's presence in Syria will contribute to the stability of not only the Syrian state, but the entire Middle East and Africa," Sybiga told Sharaa while in Damascus, according to a statement.

The Russian delegation's visit comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity by the new rulers, aimed at building ties and easing sanctions.

EU foreign ministers on Monday agreed to begin easing sanctions on Syria starting with key sectors such as energy.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday stressed the importance of "ensuring that the new government prevents Syria from becoming a source for international terrorism" and "denying foreign malign actors the opportunity to exploit Syria's transition".

SEOUL — Bird feathers and bloodstains were found in both engines of the Jeju Air plane that crashed in December, according to a preliminary investigation released Monday.

The Boeing 737-800 was flying from Thailand to Muan in South Korea on December 29 when it crash landed and exploded into a fireball after slamming into a concrete barrier.

It was the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil, killing 179 of the 181 passengers and crew.

South Korean and American investigators are still probing the cause of the disaster, with a bird strike, faulty landing gear and the runway barrier among the possible issues.

Both engines recovered from the crash site were inspected, and bird bloodstains and feathers were "found on each", the report said.

"The pilots identified a group of birds while approaching runway 01, and a security camera filmed HL8088 coming close to a group of birds during a go-around," the report added, referring to the Jeju jet's registration number.

It did not specify whether the engines had stopped working in the moments leading up to the crash.

DNA analysis identified the feathers and blood as coming from Baikal teals, migratory ducks which fly to Korea in winter from their breeding grounds in Siberia.

After the air traffic control tower cleared the jet to land, it advised the pilots to exercise caution against potential bird strikes at 8:58 am, the report said. Just a minute later, both the voice and data recording systems stopped functioning.

Seconds after the recording systems failed, the pilots declared mayday due to a bird strike and attempted a belly landing.

The Jeju plane exploded in flames when it collided with a concrete embankment during its landing, prompting questions about why that type barricade was in place at the end of the runway.

Last week, authorities said they would replace such concrete barriers at airports nationwide with "breakable structures".

The captain had over 6,800 flight hours, while the first officer had 1,650 hours, according to the report. Both were killed in the crash, which was survived only by two flight attendants.