President Donald Trump said Wednesday that although he’s looking ahead optimistically to a historic summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un he could still pull out if he feels it’s “not going to be fruitful.”
Trump said that CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Kim “got along really well” in their recent secret meeting, and he declared, “We’ve never been in a position like this” to address worldwide concerns over North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
But speaking alongside Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, after the allies met at Trump’s Florida resort, he made clear that he’d still be ready to pull the plug on what is being billed as an extraordinary meeting between the leaders of longtime adversaries.
“If I think that if it’s a meeting that is not going to be fruitful we’re not going to go. If the meeting when I’m there is not fruitful I will respectfully leave the meeting,” Trump told a news conference. He also said that a U.S.-led “maximum pressure” campaign of tough economic sanctions on North Korea would continue until the isolated nation “denuclearizes.”
Abe echoed the sentiment.
“Just because North Korea is responding to dialogue, there should be no reward. Maximum pressure should be maintained,” he said.
Trump has said his summit with Kim, with whom he traded bitter insults and threats last year as North Korea conducted nuclear and missile tests, could take place by early June, although the venue has yet to be decided. It would be the first such leadership summit between the two nations after six decades of hostility following the Korean War.
Other than the threat posed to by North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction, another issue overhanging the summit plans is the fate of three Americans detained there. Trump said that was under negotiation and there was a “good chance” of winning their release, but he wouldn’t say whether that was a precondition for sitting down with Kim.
Pompeo raised the question of the three Americans in his meeting with Kim, a U.S. official said.
Trump also said he had promised Abe he would work hard for the return of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea. Tokyo says at least a dozen Japanese said to have been taken in the 1970s and 1980s remain unaccounted for.
News of Pompeo’s trip to North Korea, which took place more than two weeks ago, emerged on Tuesday, as lawmakers weighed whether he should be confirmed to become secretary of state. Trump and Republican senators held up his highly unusual, secret mission as sign of Pompeo’s diplomatic ability. But the prospect of his confirmation hung in the balance as Democrats lined up against him.
Sen. Robert Menendez, top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will have the first vote on confirmation, expressed frustration that the CIA chief had not briefed him on the visit that took place more than a week before Pompeo’s public hearing last Thursday.
He is the most senior U.S. official to meet with a North Korean leader since Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met with Kim’s father in Pyongyang in 2000.
“Now I don’t expect diplomacy to be negotiated out in the open, but I do expect for someone who is the nominee to be secretary of state, when he speaks with committee leadership and is asked specific questions about North Korea, to share some insights about such a visit,” Menendez said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The committee is expected to vote on the nomination next week. Pompeo, whose hawkish foreign policy views and comments about minorities have raised Democratic hackles, would replace Rex Tillerson who was pushed out by Trump last month.
In the U.S. Senate, Republicans have a single-vote advantage on the 21-member panel that will have the first say on Pompeo’s nomination. With nine of the 10 Democrats already declaring they will oppose Pompeo, and at least one Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, also opposed, the panel could be forced to take the unusual step of sending the nomination to the full Senate without a favorable recommendation.
Trump said Wednesday he expects Paul to come through on Pompeo. The president called Paul and the senator agreed to meet with Pompeo, but Paul’s spokesman said, “Nothing else has changed.”
As for opposition by Democrats, Republican Cory Gardner, who chairs an Asia subcommittee, said in an interview that they “want to play partisan politics.”
Despite meeting Pompeo Tuesday, Gardner said he hadn’t been briefed on the trip and was awaiting more information about it. Still, he said the fact that the meeting happened gave weight to Pompeo’s testimony last week that the administration was committed to the “complete and verifiable denuclearization” of North Korea and sustaining sanctions pressure.
It is not unprecedented for U.S. intelligence officials to serve as conduits for communication with Pyongyang. In 2014, the then-director of U.S. national intelligence, James Clapper, secretly visited North Korea to bring back two American detainees. Clapper did not, however, meet with Kim, who has only in recent weeks emerged from international seclusion after taking power six years ago and super-charging North Korea’s push to become a nuclear power. Kim met last month with China’s president and is to meet South Korea’s leader April 27.
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Signs of metal fatigue were found where the fan blade separated from the engine, experts said
A similar engine fault behind a fatal mid-air engine explosion that punctured a passenger jet window was reported in 2016, it has emerged.
A female passenger died after she was nearly sucked from the cabin of a Southwest Airlines flight travelling from New York to Dallas on Tuesday.
Investigators say there was a fault with the engine’s fan blades – the cause of the incident two years ago.
US aviation authorities are to order inspections of similar jet engines.
Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, a Boeing 737 which was carrying 149 people, was forced to make an emergency landing at Philadelphia airport on Tuesday following a fault with one of its CFM56-7B engines.
An initial investigation found evidence of metal fatigue where a fan blade had broken off, according to the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
A similar incident was recorded in 2016 involving a Southwest flight that landed safely in Florida.
It added that the “airworthiness directive”, which will require inspections of a large number of CFM56-7B engines, would be issued within the next two weeks.
The CFM56-7B engine is in use on more than 8,000 Boeing 737 planes worldwide, the manufacturer says.
Last year, the FAA estimated that some 220 of these engines would require testing, having carried out a certain number of flights.
On Wednesday, other airlines that use planes fitted with the CFM56-7B engine, including United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, said they had begun inspecting some of their aircraft.
What have investigators said?
NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt told reporters that a fan blade had broken off due to metal fatigue and that a second fracture had been recorded about halfway along its length.
He could not say if the incident indicated a fleet-wide issue with the Boeing 737-700.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
The airliner made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport
Mr Sumwalt also said a casing on the engine was meant to contain any parts that come loose but, due to the speed, the metal was able to penetrate the shell.
The FAA did not say how many engines would be inspected. It said that any fan blades that failed the inspection would have to be replaced.
Debris ripped a hole more than a foot long in the fuselage of the jet above the left wing, causing cabin decompression. An investigation into that incident also found signs of metal fatigue, according to the NTSB.
So what do we know about the engines?
They were developed by French-US joint venture CFM International, which says it is the “world’s leading supplier of jet engines for single-aisle aircraft”.
CFM’s parent companies are sending 40 technicians to help Southwest inspect engines. French officials have also said they are travelling to the US to assist with the investigation.
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Jennifer Riordan is the first passenger to die in an accident on a US commercial airliner since 2009
Jennifer Riordan was a 43-year-old mother-of-two and executive for Wells Fargo bank in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Shrapnel from the shredded engine smashed the window next to her causing rapid decompression in the cabin that nearly blasted her out of the jet.
Other passengers pulled her back in and tried to revive her but she died from her injuries.
Philadelphia’s medical examiner said on Wednesday that Ms Riordan had died of blunt impact trauma to her head, neck and torso.
Seven other passengers were slightly injured.
Ms Riordan was the first passenger to die in an accident on a US commercial airliner since 2009.
Who piloted the aircraft?
Image copyright Reuters/US Navy
Image caption
Tammie Jo Shults flew fighter jets for the US Navy
Capt Tammie Jo Shults was hailed as a hero by passengers on the stricken flight.
On Wednesday, she and First Officer Darren Ellisor said in a written statement released by the airline: “As captain and first officer of the crew of five who worked to serve our customers aboard Flight 1380 yesterday, we all feel we were simply doing our jobs. Our hearts are heavy.”
‘American hero’ lands stricken airliner
They said they were working with investigators and would not be talking to the media.
Media captionAir traffic control: “I’m sorry, you said there is a hole?”
Capt Shults, a New Mexico native, graduated with university degrees in biology and agribusiness before joining the military.
She served in the US Navy for 10 years and flew fighter jets before leaving active service in 1993 after achieving the rank of lieutenant commander.
Her husband, Dean Shults, is also a pilot for Southwest, according to a relative.
On social media, some compared the mother-of-two with Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who glided a US Airways plane into New York’s main waterway in 2009 in what became known as “The Miracle on the Hudson”.
How did the drama unfold?
About 20 minutes after the twin-engine Boeing 737 took off, shrapnel pierced the passenger compartment causing the plane to lose pressure and rapidly descend.
With oxygen masks over their mouths, passengers screamed and braced for impact.
For a few seconds, the aircraft rolled to an angle of 41 degrees before levelling out and starting an emergency descent, federal investigators said on Wednesday.
“Southwest 1380, we’re single engine,” the pilot radioed to air traffic control.
“We have part of the aircraft missing so we’re going to need to slow down a bit,” she said, adding that some passengers had been hurt.
“Injured passengers, okay, and is your airplane physically on fire?” asks a male voice in the tower, according to a recording released by officials.
“No, it’s not on fire, but part of it’s missing,” Capt Shults replies.
“They said there’s a hole, and uh, someone went out,” she calmly adds.
