LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas: Five employees of an environmental consulting firm died when a small airplane they were traveling in crashed near a Little Rock factory on Wednesday shortly after taking off, authorities said.
The twin-engine plane crashed outside an industrial area in Little Rock, a couple of miles south of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Cody Burk said. The Federal Aviation Administration said five people were on board the plane.
The Beech BE20 had departed the Little Rock airport and was headed to John Glenn Columbus International Airport in Columbus, Ohio, the FAA said.
Burk did not immediately release the names or ages of the people on the plane. The FAA said it and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.
CTEH, an environmental consulting firm based in North Little Rock, said the five people on board the plane — including the pilot — were its employees. A company spokesman said the employees were responding to an explosion at an Ohio metals plant this week that killed one worker and sent more than a dozen to the hospital.
“We are incredibly saddened to report the loss of our Little Rock colleagues,” Paul Nony, senior vice president of CTEH, said in a statement released by the company. “We ask everyone to keep the families of those lost and the entire CTEH team in their thoughts and prayers.”
The crash occurred as a line of thunderstorms that the National Weather Service said included wind gusts of 40 mph (64 kph) moved through the Little Rock area. Burk said it would be up to investigators to determine if weather was a factor.
Nearby residents said they saw an intense fire from the crash.
Dennis Gordon told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette he was standing on a street nearby the crash when he heard the wind pick up and then an explosion. Gordon told the paper that several smaller explosions followed, and then a huge fire.
“It was just red, then it starts turning black, and there’s this burnt smell,” Gordon told the paper.
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5 die in small airplane crash near Little Rock factory
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5 die in small airplane crash near Little Rock factory
- The crash occurred as a line of thunderstorms that the National Weather Service said included wind gusts of 40 mph (64 kph) moved through the Little Rock area
UK pro-Palestinian activists not guilty of burglary over raid at Israeli firm Elbit
LONDON: Six British pro-Palestinian activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary on Wednesday over a 2024 raid on Israeli defense firm Elbit’s factory, with a jury unable to reach verdicts on other charges including criminal damage.
Prosecutors said the six defendants were members of the now-banned group Palestine Action, which organized a meticulously planned assault on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, causing about 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) of damage.
Prosecutors had told a jury at London’s Woolwich Crown Court at the start of the trial in November that the six were part of a larger group that used a white former prison van to smash into the factory in the early hours of August 6, 2024.
Some of the group used fireworks and smoke grenades to keep security guards at bay, while others caused “extensive damage” inside the factory by smashing equipment with crowbars and hammers and spraying red paint, prosecutor Deanna Heer said.
The defendants said they were simply motivated to destroy weapons to stop what they described as Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and disavowed violence against people.
Not guilty verdicts and hung jury
The six on trial – Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31 – all denied charges of aggravated burglary, violent disorder and criminal damage.
They were all acquitted of the burglary offense while Rajwani, Rogers and Devlin were found not guilty of violent disorder.
The jury could not reach verdicts on the same charge against Head, Corner and Kamio after more than 36-and-a-half hours of deliberation.
Corner had also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent for hitting a female police sergeant with a sledgehammer. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on that count.
The defendants hugged in the dock and waved to supporters in the public gallery, who cheered loudly after the judge had left the court.
Britain proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last July, almost a year after the Elbit incident took place, making it a crime to be a member.
Judge Jeremy Johnson had told the jurors they must consider the case “on the evidence, not on the basis of what you or anyone else thinks about Palestine Action or the war in Gaza.”
Heer said on Wednesday that prosecutors wanted time to consider whether to seek a retrial on the counts on which the jury could not reach verdicts. ($1 = 0.7294 pounds)
Prosecutors said the six defendants were members of the now-banned group Palestine Action, which organized a meticulously planned assault on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, causing about 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) of damage.
Prosecutors had told a jury at London’s Woolwich Crown Court at the start of the trial in November that the six were part of a larger group that used a white former prison van to smash into the factory in the early hours of August 6, 2024.
Some of the group used fireworks and smoke grenades to keep security guards at bay, while others caused “extensive damage” inside the factory by smashing equipment with crowbars and hammers and spraying red paint, prosecutor Deanna Heer said.
The defendants said they were simply motivated to destroy weapons to stop what they described as Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and disavowed violence against people.
Not guilty verdicts and hung jury
The six on trial – Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31 – all denied charges of aggravated burglary, violent disorder and criminal damage.
They were all acquitted of the burglary offense while Rajwani, Rogers and Devlin were found not guilty of violent disorder.
The jury could not reach verdicts on the same charge against Head, Corner and Kamio after more than 36-and-a-half hours of deliberation.
Corner had also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent for hitting a female police sergeant with a sledgehammer. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on that count.
The defendants hugged in the dock and waved to supporters in the public gallery, who cheered loudly after the judge had left the court.
Britain proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last July, almost a year after the Elbit incident took place, making it a crime to be a member.
Judge Jeremy Johnson had told the jurors they must consider the case “on the evidence, not on the basis of what you or anyone else thinks about Palestine Action or the war in Gaza.”
Heer said on Wednesday that prosecutors wanted time to consider whether to seek a retrial on the counts on which the jury could not reach verdicts. ($1 = 0.7294 pounds)
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