Family speaks out after Air Force veteran, 62, was ‘left to die by American Airlines crew’

The family of an Air Force veteran who died of a heart attack after an American Airlines crew allegedly delayed calling for help until the entire plane had deboarded have spoken out about the “mind-boggling” hold-up that continues to haunt them.

In an exclusive interview with The Independent, relatives of John William Cannon said they are still struggling to process the unthinkable tragedy.

“He was treated like an object,” Cannon’s son Kyle said. “They never even gave him a chance.”

The 62-year-old was traveling on connecting flights from his home in Louisville, Kentucky to Durango, a small city in southwest Colorado for a funeral when he suffered a “medical crisis” on the last leg of the journey from Dallas Fort-Worth on April 28, 2023.

According to a wrongful death lawsuit brought against American Airlines by Kyle, who is also the executor of his father’s estate, Cannon had passed out on the jetway while getting off his first flight but was still allowed to get on his connection to Durango. At points during the two-hour-and-twenty-minute trip, he was in visible distress, struggling to breathe and falling in and out of consciousness.

The crew, however, waited until the plane had landed in Colorado, taxied to the gate and all other passengers got off before calling for help, alleges the lawsuit, which was reported first by The Independent.

The father of one – described by his family as a “very loving person” and an avid outdoorsman who loved tinkering with cars and motorcycles and had no history of heart problems – went into cardiac arrest in the back of the ambulance and died a few hours later at the hospital.

Kyle Cannon, 28, said he simply cannot fathom the delay in summoning assistance – a decision he described as “mind-boggling.”

“I’ll be out in the field, thinking, and I just can’t wrap my head around it,” said Kyle, a Kentucky farmer. “When you have somebody on board who is in critical shape, you should do all that you have in your power to get that person the help they need. He should have been the first person off the plane, but he was the last person. It’s hard to believe that that could actually happen. But it did.”

In the two years since Cannon’s death, his family has been left trying to piece together exactly what happened on that flight. They say American Airlines has been less than forthcoming and what they have learned has brought them little comfort.

“Trying to piece it together, and trying to make it make sense, and hoping that they tried to save him, and then with each piece of information that we would uncover, it just got worse and worse and worse and worse and worse,” said Kyle.

Kyle’s aunt, Cannon’s sister Kate, said this has been one of the most excruciating parts of bouncing back.

“We were hoping to find answers and get some solace and it has just been one misstep after another,” she told The Independent. “It just tears you up, reliving it again and again.”

The situation constituted “just epic fails” from start to finish, said Cannon’s other sister, Molly.

She had seen him off at the Louisville airport on the morning of his death, and recalled her brother’s final wave to her as he went through security.

“I was the last person that saw him alive – he turned around when he was going through security and waved. I didn’t know that would be the last time I would see him. I can’t get that out of my mind,” she told The Independent.

Her brother had “a sense of humor like no other,” Molly said.

“He loved people, he always worked with people, and was a very loving person,” she went on. “He cared a lot. Had a big heart. As a teenager, he was really into motorcycles, both dirt bikes and street bikes. He was incredibly coordinated, he could do wheelies down the whole street. I couldn’t understand how he did all the things he could do.”

The three lost their mother at the age of 89, a year before Cannon’s death. But, Molly said, losing a sibling “is a different feeling. It just blows you out of the water.”

It was Molly who initially became concerned about Cannon’s whereabouts after he failed to contact her when he got to Durango, where he was heading for the funeral of his best friend’s partner. She began calling her brother’s phone continuously, to no avail. So, at around 10pm she tried calling the friend who was supposed to pick him up at the airport. But, he, too, failed to pick up, Molly said.

Then, around midnight, a woman finally answered Cannon’s phone. It was an ICU nurse at Mercy Medical Center, who said Cannon was in dire shape. Molly immediately contacted Kate, who said neither of them “had any idea what to do.” The two began booking flights to get to Durango the next morning, so they could be by their brother’s side as he recuperated. Then, shortly after they had their tickets in hand, the phone rang.

“The hospital called us back and they said, ‘If you want to say goodbye to your brother, we’re going to hold the phone up to his ear,’” Kate recalled, describing the moment as, alternately, “very surreal” and “unimaginable.”

She had tears in her eyes as she shared those final moments: “Those last few minutes when he was dying, we were saying, ‘I love you, John, I’m going to miss you, John. More even than I love you, I’m going to miss you so much’.”

Kate said she relives the situation over and over in her mind. She hates thinking about her brother suffering, and finds holidays without him especially tough.

“I just have to be grateful for the time we had with him, but I definitely feel robbed for the time we didn’t,” she said.

The weekend after Cannon’s death, Molly spoke to a nurse at the hospital who told her the medics who brought her brother in seemed “traumatized” by the way the situation had been handled.

“They see a lot of really, really horrific stuff, and for them to say that, it really speaks to how bad this was,” Kyle said, adding that the first responders encouraged the family to sue.

Kyle believes his father should have been sent to the hospital rather than having been allowed to board his connecting flight after blacking out in Dallas. This, Kyle contended, “would have probably saved his life.”

“We would like American to show some accountability so this doesn’t happen to somebody else,” he said. “We can’t bring him back, but if this could save somebody else’s life, that’s what he would want.”

The family’s lawsuit slams American for failing to provide Cannon with first aid while onboard, failing to turn him over to a physician in a timely manner, and “failing to prioritize… Cannon in the deboarding process once he exhibited signs of extreme physical distress onboard the aircraft.”

Cabin crews are trained in CPR, and all commercial airliners have been required since 2004 to carry defibrillators onboard, family attorney Joseph LoRusso told The Independent.

“Nobody’s expecting a flight attendant to be a doctor, but you have to at least attempt a recovery,” he said.

In an email, an American Airlines spokesperson told The Independent, “We are reviewing the complaint.”

Suspect named after 11 killed in car-ramming attack

A man has been charged with murder over the car-ramming attack at a festival in Vancouver that killed 11 people, including a five-year-old.

At least 20 other people were injured after a car ploughed into a crowd at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival at 8pm on Saturday.

Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder, according to the Vancouver Police Department. More charges are expected, officials said.

Earlier, the city’s interim police chief Steve Rai said the man arrested over the incident was known to law enforcement and mental health professionals before the incident.

Mr Rai said the man in custody had “a significant history of interactions with police and healthcare professionals related to mental health” as police remained confident the incident was not an act of terrorism.

He called the incident the “darkest day in Vancouver’s history” and said it would be a “watershed moment” for operational changes in the city’s police department.

Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney said the nation was left “shocked, devastated and heartbroken” and cancelled final rallies in Calgary, Richmond and British Columbia ahead of the federal election on Monday.

Canada heads to the polls in election turned on its head by Trump

Canada is voting in a crucial election dominated by Donald Trump’s trade war and in the aftermath of a deadly car-ramming attack in Vancouver.

Voters will pick either current prime minister Mark Carney, head of a Liberal party that has had a decade in power, or leader of the opposition Conservatives, Pierre Poilievre.

A poll by Abacus Data published on Sunday, found that the Liberals were on 41 per cent of the vote compared with 39 per cent for Conservatives.

Mr Poilievre, a populist firebrand who campaigned with Trump-like bravado, had hoped to make the election a referendum on former prime minister Justin Trudeau, whose popularity declined before his resignation earlier this year as food and housing prices rose and immigration surged. But then Mr Trump became the dominant issue as he slapped 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and has repeatedly called for the country to become “the 51st state”.

Last year, the Conservatives held a 20-point lead in national polls over the governing Liberals for months, but when the election was called the Liberals were level in the polls as Mr Carney hit out at the US president. They edged ahead in April.

Gene Hackman autopsy results shine light on actor’s challenging medical history

The final autopsy results for Gene Hackman have been revealed more than two months after the actor was found dead at home with his wife in Santa Fe.

The bodies of the Oscar-winning actor, 95, and his wife of 30 years Betsy Arakawa, 65, were found along with their dog on 27 February. They had been dead for some time before they were discovered by a maintenance worker.

Early investigations ruled out death by carbon monoxide poisoning, while a necropsy report confirmed that Arakawa had died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare rodent-borne disease.

Hackman’s autopsy has revealed new details about the health of the star of The French Connection and Unforgiven, with the results stating he had a “history of congestive heart failure” as well as “severe chronic hypertensive changes, kidneys” and “neurodegenerative features consistent with Alzheimer’s Disease”.

Arakawa died one week before Hackman, who may not have been aware his wife was dead due to the advanced condition of his Alzheimer’s.

“Autopsy showed severe atherosclerotic and hypertensive cardiovascular disease with placement of coronary artery stents and a bypass graft, as well as a previous aortic valve replacement,” the results, which were obtained by Fox News Digital, revealed.

“Remote myocardial infarctions were present involving the left ventricular free wall and the septum, which were significantly large. Examination of the brain showed microscopic findings of advanced stage Alzheimer’s disease.”

According to the autopsy, Hackman had been fitted with a “bi-ventricular pacemaker” since April 2019. He was also clear of hantavirus, which was the cause of Arakawa’s death after their home became a possible “breeding ground” for the rodent-spread disease.

The hantavirus disease is spread through the urine, faeces and saliva of infected rodents and is most commonly transmitted in the US by the harmless-looking deer mouse. The severe and potentially deadly illness affects the lungs, presenting flu-like symptoms before progressing.

A subsequent environmental risk assessment conducted by the New Mexico Public Health Department found signs of rodents across multiple buildings on the couple’s estate, according to documents seen by TMZ.

Rodent faeces were found in three garages, two casitas (guest houses) and three sheds on the couple’s property. Two rodents (one dead) and a rodent nest were found in three detached garages. Two vehicles on the property also showed signs of rodent presence, with nests, droppings and sights of the animals.

The infestation appeared to have been ongoing as live traps had been set up in the outbuildings, according to the report.

However, the primary residence was deemed low-risk, with no signs of rodent activity inside the couple’s home. The investigation had been conducted to determine the risk to first responders and family members who had visited the property following the deaths.

It was also required in order to determine its risk of spreading. Three more people have been killed by the virus in a small Californian town, unrelated to Arakawa’s death.

Hantavirus pulmonary disease is fatal in nearly four out of 10 people who are infected. Just under 730 cases were identified in the US between 1993 and 2017. Nearly all cases were west of the Mississippi River.

Trump team litters White House lawn with mugshots of arrested migrants

President Donald Trump’s administration has lined the White House driveway with large posters featuring mugshots of migrants as the president broadcasts his immigration crackdown, according to a report.

In a clear view for the press, the “roughly 100” posters were placed along “Pebble Beach,” the north grounds of the White House where TV crews broadcast from, Axios reported Monday.

Each poster features the word “ARRESTED” above an immigrant’s mugshot and the crime they are accused of committing. Instead of names, the posters say “illegal alien” under each mugshot.

The hope is that the posters are visible behind the journalists as they broadcast from that spot, a White House official told Axios.

Photos, obtained by the news website, show posters with immigrants who allegedly committed “murder,” “sexual offense against child,” “rape,” and “distribution of fentanyl”.

The posters capture “some of the worst illegal immigrants and criminals the Trump administration has arrested since taking office,” an official told Axios.

The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.

The lawn display come after a New York Times-Siena College poll found that less than half of Americans — 47 percent — approve of the way Trump is handling immigration. That’s a relative strength for the president in recent polls, as his overall approval rating has dipped since his inauguration to 42 percent.

Polling by ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos shows his approval rating as low as 39 percent, marking the worst showing for a president at the 100-day mark, dating back to at least the end of the Second World War.

The posters were set up shortly before Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan was set to give a briefing Monday morning.

The Trump administration has been scrutinized for removing alleged Venezuelan gang members last month who were then taken to a brutal Salvadoran mega-prison under the president’s use of a wartime law. In court documents, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official admitted that “many” of the deported men have no criminal record whatsoever.

Over the weekend, a two-year-old U.S. citizen appeared to have been deported from Louisiana to Honduras; a federal judge denounced the move as having “no meaningful process.” The child was reportedly released in Honduras on Friday along with her mother and sister, who were born in the country.

Last month, Homeland Security announced that in Trump’s first 50 days in office, ICE has arrested nearly 33,000 immigrants, nearly half of whom were convicted criminals. These include the arrests of a Honduran man convicted of criminal sexual conduct with a minor and a Mexican man convicted of drug trafficking.

How online schools can help children form friendships as they learn

When thinking about the best education for your child, it’s naturally not just academic success that comes to mind. A good quality school experience is made up of many parts and one key element is the socialising opportunities that school can provide. Socialisation is crucial for building social skills, growing emotional intelligence and helping children form their own individual identity, as well as giving them an additional incentive to attend a place where they have fun and feel part of a community.

While it might be assumed that the social options are reduced when children attend online school, this is not the case. In fact, there are a number of advantages in terms of the structures, support and diverse social opportunities offered to children who join online schools.

Online schools give students the opportunity to form connections with a much more diverse community of students. The online model allows schools to welcome young people from around the world and this gives pupils a chance to make friends with students from differing backgrounds and cultures. Furthermore, this means they can meet more like-minded individuals and form stronger bonds and more meaningful friendships. This access to such a big and vibrant community also ensures that students can really find ‘their people’ and avoids situations where students are stuck in small circles or forced to engage with classmates that don’t share the same interests or passions.

This is something that Grace, who is now in year 13, has experienced since moving to online school. At her previous school, she was struggling with socialisation and felt that she didn’t really have a self-identity. At an online school, she has found she can be more herself. “A lot of people think that online school is about being alone, but I’ve found that without the physical element, I can express myself better,” Grace explains.  Subsequently, the majority of her closest friends are from her online school and many she has met offline too. “I feel like I’ve met my people,” she says.

Isabella, who is in year 10, has also found that her experience of socialising at an online school has suited her much more than previous bricks and mortar schools. With her father’s job meaning the family moves country every three years, she has always previously struggled forming new friendships at the schools she joins. “I’m always the ‘new’ student, and it’s tough,” she says. After experiences with bullying, she found that online school is an environment she can thrive in. “You don’t have to turn on your camera or use your microphones if you’re not feeling comfortable. I’m not really a ‘social’ person, but I have made some friends here because we have these breakout rooms where we can talk to each other,” she adds.

While young people might not be meeting their fellow students physically every day, online schools put in place extensive measures to ensure that socialising is available for those who want to. This can be seen clearly at King’s InterHigh, the UK’s leading global online school which welcomes children aged 7 to 19 from across the world. Here, students join a warm and welcoming community with a huge range of opportunities for socialising. There’s dozens of clubs and societies for students across all year groups, representing a vast range of interests from chess to technology, sculpture to debate. Throughout the yearly student calendar, there are a number of events, showcases, and competitions of all kinds that provide a chance to socialise in different settings. Some happen internally, like the King’s InterHigh Arts Festival, while others allow students to interact with peers from outside their school when attending events like the International Robotics Competition.

Assemblies bring students together on a weekly basis and give them the chance to celebrate each other’s achievements, hear from their Student Council representatives, and find out what’s coming up at school. Each student is also assigned to one of the school’s eight houses and these smaller, tight-knit communities bring students a sense of belonging and camaraderie. Additionally, inter-house competitions are a fun and friendly way for students to engage and bond.

Although much socialising can come as a result of activities organised by the school, students at King’s InterHigh who are aged over 13 can continue building these relationships in a more informal setting thanks to the in-house, monitored, social media platform. Restricted solely to school students, the platform is safe, secure, and monitored to ensure a positive socialising environment for all those who choose to use it.

Online schools don’t just offer opportunities to socialise online but also offer ample opportunities to cement these connections in offline settings. At King’s InterHigh, there are global meet-ups throughout the year which bring together families allowing both children and parents and guardians to connect in real life. Regular educational school trips, from Geography excursions to science practical exams at other Inspired schools (the group of premium schools of which King’s InterHigh is part of) also allow children to socialise and have fun together in different settings.

Meanwhile, the annual summer camps, themed around a variety of interests and passions, including adventure sports, fashion, football, and tennis, are open to students across all Inspired schools and are held at spectacular Inspired campuses worldwide. Furthermore, the Inspired Global Exchange Programme offers a range of school exchange opportunities, lasting from one week to a full academic year.

Choosing where to educate your children is a big decision for any parent or guardian that involves many factors. However, when it comes to the social benefits, for the right child, online schools offer something truly transformative. To find out more about King’s InterHigh and whether it might be the right learning choice for your family, visit King’s InterHigh

Black Hawk helicopter pilot made ‘fatal mistake’ before crash, report claims

The pilot of the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into an American Airlines plane in DC made a fatal mistake in the moments before the collision, according to a new report.

All 64 people on board the plane and three crew members on the Hawk were killed during the mid-air collision in Washington DC on January 29. Previous reports found that the chopper was flying too high when it collided with the passenger jet in America’s worst aviation disaster since 2001. Now an investigation by The New York Times has looked at the other errors that led up to the crash.

Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach failed to follow instructions from her co-pilot and flight instructor, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, who reportedly asked her to change course, according to The Times.

The Black Hawk crew was said to have been first alerted to a regional passenger jet in its vicinity by Ronald Reagan National Airport air traffic control.

Eaves and Lobach acknowledged the message, and asked to fly by “visual separation”, a common procedure that allows the pilot to avoid collisions by sight rather than relying on air traffic control instructions. A controller approved the request but it appears not to have been followed.

The Hawk was 15 seconds away from crossing paths with the jet when Eaves told Lobach to take a sharp left toward the east river bank, the Times reports. But this turn failed to happen, and the two aircraft struck one another.

The report goes on to say that radio communication between air traffic controllers and the pilots became disrupted, with some of the air instructions being “stepped on”.

This meant that communication dropped as soon as a member of the Hawk crew pressed down on the microphone to speak, and subsequently, key information may have gone unheard.

There were other issues that contributed to the tragedy, the investigation found.

Technology that tracked the aircraft’s movements over the Potomac was switched off at the time of the crash, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, told The Times. It was reportedly done to comply with U.S. Army protocol, which allows for pilots to practice secretly while airlifting a senior government official in an emergency.

Air traffic control errors may also have played a part, the report adds. After giving the Hawk crew permission for visual separation, air control staff continued to monitor its movements but failed to deliver vital emergency instructions to the members as they closed in on the AA jet, aviation experts said.

Captain Lobach and Warrant Officer Eaves were believed to be wearing night-vision goggles at the time of the military exercise, according to investigators. Such equipment was necessary for her evaluation as they can enhance visibility at night in complex surroundings, yet this can be skewered by bright urban lights, military pilots added.

“Multiple layers of safety precautions failed that night,” said the Federal Aviation Administration’s deputy administrator under President Joe Biden, Katie Thomson.

Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, the Army’s director of aviation, added: “I think what we’ll find in the end is there were multiple things that, had any one of them changed, it could have well changed the outcome of that evening.”

In statement to The Times the FAA said it could not discuss any aspect of its ongoing investigation into the deadly crash.

The Army has since made changes to how its helicopters use a safety system that broadcasts aircraft location and has reduced the number of flights over Washington following the DC crash, the head of Army aviation said earlier this month. The FAA has also permanently closed a route along the Potomac River that directly intersected the flight path for the runway where January’s collision took place.

Farage is on the brink of another election breakthrough. At what cost?

Probably the worst thing that could happen to Nigel Farage this week would be that Reform UK wins all the six regional mayoralties and 37 local and county councils that are up for grabs in Thursday’s elections.

It would force his policy-free populist party of protest into a party of power – and would show this bunch of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”, as someone once called them, to be as clueless as they actually are. They don’t have a clue about how to help the people who vote for them – often as not as a fairly desperate protest – and they need to be exposed as the charlatans they really are.

That won’t happen – but Reform will do well, if the polls are to be believed.

The local elections are helpful to them because they can concentrate their still-modest resources on key wards, in a way they can’t so easily in larger, parliamentary constituencies. Such is the fragmentation of voting now that some of their candidates could be in charge of entire cities and counties, on little more than a quarter of possible votes cast, taking into account the traditionally low turnouts – not much more than one in seven of the adult residents in the area.

The first-past-the-post system, which the Tories brought in for the mayoralties, may not do them any favours. Andrea Jenkyns in Lincolnshire and Luke Campbell in Hull and East Yorkshire look to have the best shouts, with Arron Banks having an outside chance of coming through the middle of a split progressive vote in the West of England. They might get into some kind of power-sharing arrangement with the Tories in the counties, too – but Doncaster is Reform’s best bet to overturn Labour control.

And then what?

Reform has no local election manifesto, and the mayors and councillors can’t do anything to “stop the boats” or reduce regular migration. Farage says that they’ll set up Elon Musk-inspired “Doge” operations that will cut waste and, no doubt, sack anyone connected with diversity, equality and inclusivity in local government. Which won’t save much money and will, though the Reform politicians won’t care, make local authorities less open and accessible to minorities of all kinds, not just ethnic groups.

They’ll try and get rid of programmes without knowing what they are, Musk-style, and cause enormous damage in doing so – not least to themselves, because no one is voting Reform UK to make their local services even worse than they currently are.

Do Farage’s ignorant remarks about people with mental health problems and children with special educational needs being “over-diagnosed” mean they’ll try to cut them off – despite a statutory obligation to care for them? And a series of expensive court challenges? One must fear the worst.

Will, in other words, Reform UK be able to balance the books and run services miraculously better than their Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Green counterparts? Of course not.

The central fact about British local government is that it is skint and being asked to do too much with too little by central government – and, as a result, is utterly demoralised. The Reform politicians – and, by definition, they are politicians, not outsiders – now seeking power don’t have access to secret funding to transform social care, to save libraries, to house people, reduce council debts or revitalise town centres. But nor is there any sign that they have the experience, ideas and policies to make what little money there is go that much further.

If they’re sensible – which tends not to be the case – the Reform lot will just get on with the job and stick to the local agenda. If they run rather closer to the form book, they’ll spend their time and energy on stirring up trouble, running campaigns against “migrant hotels”, dividing relatively harmonious populations, creating grievances where there aren’t any handy ones to exploit, and making dangerous fools of themselves.

Contrary to what some Conservatives, such as Robert Jenrick and Ben Houchen would like, the worst thing the Tories could do is to usher Reform into power anywhere, because from that, there is only going to be a downside – financial and administrative chaos, shameful cruelty to the homeless and people with disabilities, and a large dollop of ill-concealed racial hatred, especially Islamophobia, propagated in the name of “free speech”. No self-respecting Conservative should be associated with that, no matter what the balance of power in the council chamber is. Reform should be quarantined, not facilitated.

Reform rule will solve nothing.

If they get in – and no less an authority as Professor John Curtice told The Independent that Reform had “already won” the Thursday elections, and will end up winning “probably a few hundred” seats across the country – Reform politicians will bring themselves and, sadly, their communities into disrepute, and then, if we’re lucky, split on the question of which residents in their area that they’d like to “deport”.

What, for those purposes, is an “illegal immigrant”? Does it include people born here? Does it include refugees who’ve been allowed to settle? To become British citizens? Do these new councillors and mayors agree with Reform’s former MP Rupert Lowe about deporting relatives of those involved in the rape gangs? Do they think incitement to riot or racial hatred should be legalised?

Do they think the NHS should be turned into a safety net for people who can’t afford private treatment or health insurance? How will they afford to take everyone on less than £20,000 out of income tax? Do they want Britain to do what Donald Trump wants? Betray Ukraine to Putin? More Brexit?

Reform UK talks a lot about “broken Britain”. Well, we might ask ourselves what broke Britain. The answer isn’t “illegal” migration – the numbers are too small – or even the much larger flows of people entering on perfectly legitimate work and student visas, keeping the economy going. What has really broken Britain is Brexit, because it permanently depresses investment and economic growth. It has thus reduced wages and the taxes needed to pay for good public services, including local government.

Farage broke Britain – and now tells us he knows how to fix it. Maybe we should just remind ourselves about what happened the last time Farage and his followers said they had all the answers.