Tag Archives: Florida

Tropical Storm Gordon hits southern Florida, spins toward U.S. Gulf Coast

FILE PHOTO: Homes sit on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico in the Myrtle Grove Estates development in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, U.S. October 7, 2017. REUTERS/Jessica Resnick-Ault/File Photo

By Jon Herskovitz and Rich McKay

(Reuters) – A tropical storm whipped the southern tip of Florida with high winds and rain on Monday morning and was forecast to gain strength as it passed over the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana, officials said.

Tropical Storm Gordon was forecast to drop as much as 8 inches (20 cm) of rain in some areas of the U.S. South still reeling from hurricanes a year ago.

The storm was generating winds of 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) on Monday as it steamed west-northwest at 17 miles an hour (27 km/h), National Hurricane Center Director Kenneth Graham said in a video briefing on Facebook.

“It looks like for the next three or four days we’re going to be having to really watch close,” Graham said, “and remember if you’re even inland you can get some of these heavy rainfall totals so now is the time to be prepared.”

Last year, hurricanes walloped Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, causing thousands of deaths, hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, massive power outages and devastation to hundreds of thousands of structures.

The National Hurricane Center warned of high winds around parts of Florida as the storm passed over the southern tip of the state on Monday morning.

The storm was expected to strengthen over the Gulf of Mexico, and reach the central Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana late on Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said.

At the mouth of the Mississippi River, around the area of New Orleans, the storm could generate a surge of up to 4 feet (1 meter) and smaller surges could hit coastland along other parts of the Gulf Coast, Graham said.

“The combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline,” the National Hurricane Center said in a statement.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said on Sunday he had activated the state’s Crisis Action Team as a precaution.

There were no immediate indications that the storm had affected energy operations in the Gulf of Mexico area.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank McGurty and Andrea Ricci)

Multiple fatalities in shooting at video game tournament in Florida

The Landing - Jacksonville, Florida

By Suzannah Gonzales and Devika Krishna Kumar

(Reuters) – A shooter killed four people and wounded at least 10 others on Sunday at a video game tournament that was being streamed online from a restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida, local media said citing police sources.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said a suspect was dead at the scene. “Searches are being conducted,” it said on Twitter.

Emergency crews and law enforcement flooded into The Jacksonville Landing, a waterfront dining, entertainment, and shopping site in the city’s downtown.

The shooting took place during a regional qualifier for the Madden 19 online game tournament at the GLHF Game Bar inside a Chicago Pizza restaurant, according to the venue’s website.

It was livestreaming the tournament when several shots rang out, according to video of the stream shared on social media. In the video, players can be seen reacting to the gunfire and cries can be heard before the footage cuts off.

One Twitter user, Drini Gjoka, said he was in the tournament and was shot in the thumb.

“Worst day of my life,” Gjoka wrote on Twitter. “I will never take anything for granted ever again. Life can be cut short in a second.”

The Los Angeles Times reported the shooter was a gamer who was competing in the tournament and lost. Citing messages from another player in the room, the Times said the gunman appeared to target several victims before killing himself. Reuters could not immediately confirm that account of events.

The Florida shooting occurs amid a debate about U.S. gun laws that was given fresh impetus by the massacre in February of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Two years ago a gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

The sheriff’s office said many people were transported to the hospital, and its deputies were finding many people hiding in locked areas at The Landing.

“We ask you to stay calm, stay where you are hiding. SWAT is doing a methodical search,” it said on Twitter. “We will get to you. Please don’t come running out.”

A spokesman for Jacksonville’s Memorial Hospital, Peter Moberg, said it was treating three victims, all of whom were in stable condition.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican who is challenging longtime Democratic Senator Bill Nelson in November’s election, said he had offered to provide local authorities with any state resources they might need.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio said both the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were coordinating with local authorities to provide assistance.

President Donald Trump has been briefed and is monitoring the situation in Jacksonville, the White House said.

Reacting to news of the shooting during the tournament involving its video game, Madden 19 maker Electronic Arts Inc said it was working with authorities to gather facts.

“This is a horrible situation, and our deepest sympathies go out to all involved,” the company said on Twitter.

(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales, Devika Krishna Kumar and Maria Caspani; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Chris Reese)

New school year, new security at site of Florida massacre

An empty chair is seen in front of flowers and mementoes placed on a fence to commemorate the victims of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, U.S., February 20, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Zachary Fagenson and Bernie Woodall

PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – Students at the Florida high school where a gunman killed 17 teens and educators last February will start a new school year on Wednesday amid new security measures that some parents and students fear may not be enough to stop future tragedies.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, has doubled its campus security detail to 18, including three uniformed sheriff’s deputies, and the school’s 3,200 students must wear identification badges as they funnel through three entrances when they arrive at the sprawling campus.

Once the first class starts daily, only one heavily monitored entrance will allow visitors on campus.

School administrators considered and then opted against requiring students to use see-through backpacks or installing metal detectors, finding it would be too difficult to screen all students each morning before class.

On Feb. 14, in the third deadliest shooting by a single gunman at an American school, Nikolas Cruz, 19, who had once been expelled from the school, allegedly opened fire with an assault-style weapon. Cruz is awaiting trial on 17 counts of first-degree murder.

Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the massacre, is worried how his son Jesse, who will start his senior year on Wednesday, will cope with spending another year on the campus where his sister died.

“Very anxious is the word right now,” Guttenberg said in an interview on Monday. He was critical of the measures the school has put in place over the summer break.

“They haven’t done that much,” he said. “They’ve got cameras, which is good, but the entry points are essentially the same.”

School district officials did not immediately offer comment on Guttenberg’s remarks.

The outburst of violence in a decades-long series of shootings at U.S. schools and colleges reignited the nation’s long-running debate on gun rights and sparked a national youth-led gun control movement, with many of the leaders coming from Stoneman Douglas. The U.S. House of Representatives did not tighten gun laws after the massacre but approved more spending for school security.

Broward County schools Superintendent Robert Runcie defended the new security measures, including the lack of metal detectors, from criticism by parents and some school board members, but acknowledged that anxieties remain high.

“This first day of school will be profoundly different and extremely challenging,” Runcie told reporters last week. “It will be emotional. It will be difficult.”

The county school board in April rejected funding from a new state program intended to arm teachers.

Changes greeting students on Wednesday include the doubling of school security personnel, raising the number of armed law enforcement officers to three from one, and classroom doors that lock automatically.

There are also new gates and fences, and the building where most of the 17 were killed is fenced-off, replaced by 32 temporary structures housing classrooms, restrooms, and administrative offices.

“I definitely don’t feel secure,” said junior Darian Williams, 16. “The security officers can do all they want but if someone wants to get in, they can get in.”

(Reporting by Zachary Fagenson and Bernie Woodall; Editing by Scott Malone)

Boy, 11, hacks into replica U.S. vote website in minutes at convention

FILE PHOTO: A man takes part in a hacking contest during the Def Con hacker convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on July 29, 2017. REUTERS/Steve Marcus/File Photo

(Reuters) – An 11-year-old boy managed to hack into a replica of Florida’s election results website in 10 minutes and change names and tallies during a hackers convention, organizers said, stoking concerns about security ahead of nationwide votes.

The boy was the quickest of 35 children, ages 6 to 17, who all eventually hacked into copies of the websites of six swing states during the three-day Def Con security convention over the weekend, the event said on Twitter on Tuesday.

The event was meant to test the strength of U.S. election infrastructure and details of the vulnerabilities would be passed onto the states, it added.

The National Association of Secretaries of State – who are responsible for tallying votes – said it welcomed the convention’s efforts. But it said the actual systems used by states would have additional protections.

“It would be extremely difficult to replicate these systems since many states utilize unique networks and custom-built databases with new and updated security protocols,” the association said.

The hacking demonstration came as concerns swirl about election system vulnerabilities before mid-term state and federal elections.

U.S President Donald Trump’s national security team warned two weeks ago that Russia had launched “pervasive” efforts to interfere in the November polls.

Participants at the convention changed party names and added as many as 12 billion votes to candidates, the event said.

“Candidate names were changed to ‘Bob Da Builder’ and ‘Richard Nixon’s head’,” the convention tweeted.

The convention linked to what it said was the Twitter account of the winning boy – named there as Emmett Brewer from Austin, Texas.

A screenshot posted on the account showed he had managed to change the name of the winning candidate on the replica Florida website to his own and gave himself billions of votes.

The convention’s “Voting Village” also aimed to expose security issues in other systems such as digital poll books and memory-card readers.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Invasion of big, voracious lizards threatens U.S. South: study

A black and white Tegu lizard is shown in the Florida Everglades in this photo obtained August 2, 2018. Courtesy Emma Hanslowe/USGS/Handout via REUTERS

By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A group of South American lizards that can grow up to four feet long (1.2 meters) has established a home in the Florida wild after being brought to the United States as pets, and the reptiles could begin a voracious march across the U.S. South, according to a new study.

Tegu lizards, which currently live in two large colonies in Florida, could expand into an area from the Carolinas to Central Texas, according to the scientific report published in July on the website for the journal Nature.

“They are voracious, omnivorous predatory lizards that can live in a variety of habitats, but we can’t know what is going to happen or how intense this invasion is going to become until the effects are upon us,” said Lee Fitzgerald, a professor at Texas A&M University and curator of its Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections.

Fitzgerald, a co-author of the study, said in an interview this week it could take years for the tegu lizards to reach their potential range, but new hot spots pop up as more pet lizards escape or are dumped in the wild by owners.

There are no current estimates of wild populations of tegus in the United States. In South America, the large-bodied lizards range widely east of the Andes and include species such as the Argentine black and white tegu.

Armed with strong jaws and tails that they can wield as thumping weapons, the lizards in Florida devour the eggs of American alligators and ground-nesting birds, wildlife officials said. The reptiles also have a taste for insects, fruit, and birds.

“As far as being a damaging invasive species, it really depends on what the threatened resources are in the areas where you might get tegus,” said Robert Reed, chief of the Invasive Species Science Branch at the U.S. Geological Survey, and another report co-author.

Tegu owners describe their pets as big, calm and occasionally affectionate lizards that like sunning themselves and are not picky about what they eat. But they can also be ornery and tough to handle.

In Florida, local wild populations of breeding tegu lizards are found in at least two counties, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough, home to Tampa, while there have been sightings in other parts of the state, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

On private lands, Florida hunters without a license are allowed to kill tegu lizards if it is done humanely. On public lands, the state is trying to get rid of the lizards through traps.

“The most important thing that the public can do to stop the spread of nonnative species like tegus is to NEVER release nonnative animals into the wild,” commission specialist Jamie Rager said in an email. “Don’t let it loose.”

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Sandra Maler)

U.S. judge grants reprieve to Puerto Ricans facing eviction

Jaykarey Skerett, a Puerto Rican mother whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Maria, sits with her two sons for an interview in her hotel room in Kissimmee, Florida, U.S. July 2 2018. Picture taken July 2, 2018. REUTERS/Joey Roule

By Joey Roulette

KISSIMMEE, Fl. (Reuters) – A federal judge will hold a hearing on Monday that could determine the fate of hundreds of Puerto Ricans who fled the hurricane-ravaged island last year and are lodging in motels, after granting them a reprieve from eviction over the weekend.

The last benefits of a federal aid program for Hurricane Maria evacuees from the island had been set to run out on Sunday morning, cutting off housing assistance for the group residing in state-side motels.

But late on Saturday U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin of Massachusetts ordered the U.S. government to extend the aid for hotel vouchers to at least check-out time on July 4. At the hearing, he could decide whether to extend it further.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has said 1,722 families are currently receiving aid under its housing program, 585 of whom reside in Central Florida motels.

FEMA said in a statement on Sunday it was aware of the judge’s decision and was contacting vendors to comply with the court order.

U.S. Democratic Representative Darren Soto, whose Kissimmee district includes Puerto Ricans facing eviction, said a displaced family can either remain in the hotel with the looming fear of losing aid or take a free flight back to the island.

“There’s a couple tough decisions people really have to make,” Soto told reporters.

Hurricane Maria dealt a vicious blow to an already struggling island that has been in recession for more than a decade, with a poverty rate near 50 percent.

Maria destroyed or significantly damaged more than a third of about 1.2 million occupied homes on the island, the government estimates.

The task of rebuilding Puerto Rico’s housing stock ultimately falls to the territory government, which has no ability to pay for it after racking up $120 billion in bond and pension debt in the years before the storm.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Parkland killer boasted of mass murder plans in cell phone videos

FILE PHOTO: Nikolas Cruz sits next to his attorneys appointed by the Broward Public Defender’s Office as a judge determines if he can afford his own lawyer, in Broward Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S., April 11, 2018. Taimy Alvarez/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

By Rich McKay

(Reuters) – The teen charged with shooting 17 people dead at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, boasted of plans to commit mass murder in a series of cell phone videos recorded by him before the rampage and released on Wednesday by prosecutors.

In one of the three video clips, Nikolas Cruz, 19, calmly declares, “Hello. My name is Nik and I’m going to be the next school shooter of 2018.” He goes on to say: “My goal is to kill at least 20 people with an AR-15,” referring to the assault-style rifle he is seen holding in the footage.

Brandishing the rifle at another point, Cruz says: “You’re all going to die,” adding with a chuckle, “Can’t wait.”

The video clips were part of an inventory of prosecution evidence recently shared with the defense team during the pre-trial discovery process, said Constance Jones-Simmons, a spokeswoman for the Broward County state attorney’s office.

The Miami Herald and other media outlets obtained copies through a public records request after seeing mention of the footage in court documents, she told Reuters.

The three videos, none longer than 90 seconds in duration, are believed to have been made a short time before the shooting rampage on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but Jones-Simmons said she did not know precisely when they were recorded.

Cruz, a former Stoneman Douglas student expelled for disciplinary problems, has been described by former classmates as a social misfit and trouble-maker who was fascinated with guns. Police have said they responded to numerous calls related to the teenager in the years leading up to the massacre.

But authorities, who say Cruz confessed to the killings after his arrest, have never offered a possible motive for the bloodshed. Release of the video “selfies,” posted online by the Herald, shed little new light on that question except to suggest Cruz felt he was treated as an outcast.

In one video, Cruz said his former classmates thought he was “an idiot and a dumb ass.” He also professed his love for a girl he mentioned only by first name, and said he hoped to see her in the “afterlife.”

The gun seen in the video is apparently the rifle authorities say Cruz legally purchased from a licensed gun dealer last year and ultimately used as the murder weapon.

He is charged with 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder stemming from the Parkland killings, which rank as the second-greatest loss of life from gun violence at a public school in modern U.S. history, after a 2012 shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 first-graders and six adult educators dead.

The Florida shooting triggered an extraordinary protest movement and lobbying campaign for tougher gun control restrictions led by student survivors of the Parkland massacre and parents of the victims.

Cruz, whose own lawyer had called him a “broken human being” who feels remorse for his crimes, is being held in the Broward County jail without bond in Fort Lauderdale, and is on suicide watch, officials said.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Michael Perry)

Alberto remnants threaten Alabama with flash flooding

Subtropical Storm Alberto arrives at Orange Beach, Alabama, U.S., May 28, 2018, in this picture obtained from social media. David Green/@dsg_dukester/Twitter/via REUT

By Rich McKay

(Reuters) – Subtropical storm Alberto fizzled into a subtropical depression as it rolled into Alabama on Tuesday but forecasters warned of potentially dangerous flash floods even as winds dropped to 30 miles per hour (48 km per hour).

Subtropical Storm Alberto is pictured nearing the Florida Panhandle in this May 27, 2018 NASA handout photo. NASA/Handout via REUTERS

Subtropical Storm Alberto is pictured nearing the Florida Panhandle in this May 27, 2018 NASA handout photo. NASA/Handout via REUTERS

At its height, Alberto, the first storm of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, blasted sustained winds of 65 mph (105 kph) with gusts that packed full hurricane punches of 75 mph (121 kph), said meteorologist David Roth of the National Weather Service.

“It’s slowly weakening and it’s not regaining any strength,” Roth said. “The chances of it spinning off tornadoes now has dropped to virtually zero.”

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) canceled coastal warnings and watches for the storm, which spun up days before the formal start of the hurricane season on June 1. Minor power outages were reported in north Florida, and the state’s emergency response team started closing shelters on Monday, citing a lack of need.

Some areas on Gulf Coast barrier islands remained under evacuation orders due to flood risks, officials said.

Alberto will probably weaken through Tuesday as it moves northward into the Tennessee Valley and then to the Ohio Valley, finally withering into a “remnant low pressure storm” by Tuesday evening, with winds at around 25 mph (40 kph), Roth said.

The NHC warned it would still deliver heavy, potentially damaging rains of 2-6 inches (6-15 cm), with as much as 12 inches (30 cm) in some areas in north Florida and Alabama through Tuesday night.

It could dump up to 6 inches (15 cm) of rain as it moves north toward lower Michigan by Wednesday evening, officials said.

Two journalists covering the worsening weather in North Carolina were killed on Monday when a tree fell on their vehicle.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc was sending workers back to the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Chevron Corp restored some production on Monday after the storm’s passage.

Shell plans to restore production at its Ram Powell Hub in the Viosca Knoll area of the Gulf as it soon as the platform can operate safely, the company said.

Authorities in Florida’s Franklin and Taylor counties issued mandatory evacuation orders for thousands of coastal residents.

Four deadly hurricanes struck the United States last year, killing at least 144 people and causing billions of dollars in damage, massive power outages and devastating hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, according to the NHC.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Ian Simpson and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Scott Malone and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Gunman shouting anti-Trump slogans arrested at Miami resort

By Zachary Fagenson

DORAL, Fla. (Reuters) – A gunman railing against U.S. President Donald Trump opened fire in one of the Republican’s Florida golf resorts early on Friday, exchanging gunshots with Miami police who wounded and arrested him, officials said.

Neither Trump nor any of his immediate family members were at the Trump National Doral Miami at the time, according to the Secret Service. The golf club is about 70 miles (113 km) south of the Palm Beach resort that Trump has visited regularly during his term.

The man “was trying to lure our officers … into this gunfight. He did succeed, and he did lose. That’s the bottom line,” Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez said at a news briefing, adding it was not clear what motivated his actions.

The man lowered a flag that was flying outside the Miami-area club, went into the lobby at about 1:30 a.m. EDT (0530 GMT) and draped it over the counter. He pointed a gun at people in the lobby, fired at the ceiling and a chandelier and waited to attack responding officers, Perez said.

The gunman, identified as Jonathan Oddi, 42, of Doral, was shouting anti-Trump remarks during the incident, Perez said. He said he did not know specifically what Oddi had said.

Police shot Oddi in the legs and took him into custody, and he was in hospital in stable condition.

Social media pages that appeared to be created by Oddi said that he owned a gemstone company, was a real estate investor and had been a volunteer Santa Claus at a Miami hospital in 2013.

Guests at the golf resort said they were awakened by the sound of gunshots and emergency vehicles. They were not apprised of any details of the incident by the hotel and only learned of it through news reports, they said.

“We’re staying near the lobby and my husband said he thought he heard shots,” said Ana Marta Fernandez, 49, who was visiting from Uruguay.

She said the hotel had said little more than that the golf courses were closed for the day.

“So far they’ve offered us nothing as compensation,” Fernandez said.

A resort representative was not immediately available to comment.

The U.S. Secret Service, which guards the president and his family, said in a statement that no one under its protection was in the Miami area at the time. The agency does not protect the club, but is working with police who are investigating the shooting, it said.

A Doral police officer suffered a broken arm that was not related to gunfire. Police have not said what kind of weapon the suspect had.

Authorities are trying to find out how Oddi gained entry to the 800-acre (323-hectare) Doral golf club.

Trump National Doral Golf Club is home to four championship golf courses. Trump bought the property for $150 million in 2012.

(Reporting by Zachary Fagenson in Miami, additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Bernadette Baum)

FAA to order inspections of jet engines after Southwest blast

U.S. NTSB investigators are on scene examining damage to the engine of the Southwest Airlines plane in this image released from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., April 17, 2018. NTSB/Handout via REUTERS

By Alwyn Scott and Alana Wise

(Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said it will order inspection of about 220 aircraft engines as investigators have found that a broken fan blade touched off an engine explosion this week on a Southwest flight, killing a passenger.

The regulator said late on Wednesday it plans to finalize the air-worthiness directive within the next two weeks. The order, which it initially proposed in August following an incident in 2016, will require ultrasonic inspection within the next six months of the fan blades on all CFM56-7B engines that have accrued a certain number of takeoffs.

Airlines said that because fan blades may have been repaired and moved to other engines, the order would affect far more than 220 of the CFM56-7Bs, which are made by a partnership of France’s Safran <SAF.PA> and General Electric <GE.N>.

The CFM56 engine on Southwest <LUV.N> flight 1380 blew apart over Pennsylvania on Tuesday, about 20 minutes after the Dallas-bound flight left New York’s LaGuardia Airport with 149 people on board. The explosion sent shrapnel ripping into the fuselage of the Boeing 737-700 plane and shattered a window.

Bank executive Jennifer Riordan, 43, was killed when she was partially pulled through a gaping hole next to her seat as the cabin suffered rapid decompression. Fellow passengers were able to pull her back inside but she died of her injuries.

On Wednesday, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt said the incident began when one of the engine’s 24 fan blades snapped off from its hub. Investigators found that the blade had suffered metal fatigue at the point of the break.

Sumwalt said he could not yet say if the incident, the first deadly airline accident in the United States since 2009, pointed to a fleet-wide problem in the Boeing 737-700.

Southwest crews were inspecting similar engines the airline had in service, focusing on the 400 to 600 oldest of the CFM56 engines, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. It was the second time this kind of engine had failed on a Southwest jet in the past two years, prompting airlines around the world to step up inspections.

A NTSB inspection crew was also combing over the Boeing <BA.N> 737-700 for signs of what caused the engine to explode.

Sumwalt said the fan blade, after suffering metal fatigue where it attached to the engine hub, has a second fracture about halfway along its length. Pieces of the plane were found in rural Pennsylvania by investigators who tracked them on radar. The metal fatigue would not have been observable by looking at the engine from the outside, Sumwalt said.

Passengers described scenes of panic as a piece of shrapnel from the engine shattered a plane window, almost sucking Riordan out.

Riordan was a Wells Fargo <WFC.N> banking executive and well-known community volunteer from Albuquerque, New Mexico, the company said.

Videos posted on social media showed passengers grabbing for oxygen masks and screaming as the plane, piloted by Tammie Jo Shults, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot, prepared for the descent into Philadelphia.

The airline expected to wrap up its inspection of the engines it was targeting in about 30 days.

The GE-Safran partnership that built the engine said it was sending about 40 technicians to help with Southwest’s inspections.

Pieces of the engine including its cowling – which covers its inner workings – were found about 60 miles (100 km) from Philadelphia airport, Sumwalt said. The investigation could take 12 to 15 months to complete.

In August 2016, a Southwest flight made a safe emergency landing in Pensacola, Florida, after a fan blade separated from the same type of engine and debris ripped a hole above the left wing. That incident prompted the FAA to propose last year that similar fan blades undergo ultrasonic inspections and be replaced if they failed.

(editing by David Stamp)