Two airport employees at Reagan International have been arrested in relation to the deadly crash last week between a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Eagle commercial flight. All 67 victims of the fatal crash have now been recovered from the Potomac River.
Authorities say the two men were arrested after they allegedly leaked airport security footage of the crash to CNN. They’re accused of stealing the footage from airport computers and then providing it to the fake news network. It’s unclear at this time if the men were paid by CNN for the stolen footage.
21-year-old Mohamed Lamine Mbengue is the one accused of providing the footage to CNN. 45-year-old Jonathan Savoy is accused of helping Mbengue carry out the alleged crime. Both men are from Rockville, Maryland, and were employees of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
The two men were released from the Arlington County Adult Detention Center on their own recognizance. Both are charged with computer trespass.
In Maryland, that crime encompasses things like accessing a computer that a person is not authorized to access and downloading or stealing computer files.
It could also mean they hacked into the computers, although it seems likely that they (allegedly) stole the footage on-site.
A CNN anchor aired the footage last Friday night. She said that the exclusive video “appears to be surveillance video from the airport.”
The NTSB gave an update to the investigation on Tuesday. The agency confirmed that the Army Black Hawk helicopter was, in fact, flying higher than it was supposed to. The helicopter was approximately 300 feet above sea level, while the ceiling for all helicopters in the National Capital Region is only 200 feet. The NTSB stressed that this is only a preliminary estimate and that it will have to be verified by other sources.
The agency also revealed that the passenger jet carrying 64 people did attempt to change its pitch at the last moment before the crash. This indicates that the pilot pulled on the stick to try to increase altitude and avoid the chopper.
“NTSB investigators continue to transcribe the cockpit voice recorders for both aircraft,” noted the NTSB. “Synchronization work for the Black Hawk flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder is ongoing.”
The same US Navy crew that cleaned up after the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster last April is now recovering the crashed plane and helicopter from the Potomac. Helicopters have been restricted in the airspace around Reagan International as the investigation continues.
The American people continue to have serious doubts about the nature of the crash. This was the worst air disaster that we’ve had in the US in nearly 20 years.
Plus, just a few days after that crash, a medical plane slammed into a residential neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia. All 6 passengers and one person on the ground were killed. Another 22 people on the ground were injured.
Everyone’s first instinct when the first crash happened was that the helicopter had deliberately flown into the path of the passenger jet. The media now insists that you are a “wild conspiracy theorist” for thinking that. Yet the first wild conspiracy theorist to note the oddity of the crash was the President of the United States.
As President Trump stated on Truth Social:
“It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”
Not good, indeed.
One thing that the Trump administration deserves credit for is the complete openness and transparency so far in the wake of these crashes. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy have both been providing regular updates to the American people as information becomes available.
If the previous clowns were still in charge, Joe Biden probably would have waited three or four days after the crash before even making a statement about it. At least with President Trump in charge, we have a chance of this being a legitimate investigation into the crash.
Here is the CNN clip that features the allegedly stolen airport footage of the crash:
