our aviation correspondent rene marsh is joining us right now. renee there s new information coming in right now about what this mechanic allegedly did and why. reporter: right, wolf. you know, this is really unthinkable. a trusted individual like an airline mechanic allegedly tampering with, sabotaging a commercial airliner all because he was upset about contract negotiations between the airline and the workers union. tonight an american airlines mechanic is accused of trying to sabotage a commercial airliner with 150 people onboard just before takeoff. abdul alani faced a judge in miami after being charged with willfully damaging, destroying, disabling, or wrecking an aircraft and attempting to do so. alani has not entered a plea. it happened at american airlines hub miami international airport on july 17th.
on an american airlines flight headed to nassau, bahamas with 150 passengers and crew on board. it happened in mid-july at miami international airport. as a pilots approach the runway and powered up the engines are take off, and the alert button to the so-called module lit up. the flight was aborted and inspection revealed the tampering. surveillance video helps investigators identify alani as the culprit. footage captures what appears to be the sabotage of a target aircraft, a concourse d, gate 49. the driver depicted in the footage appears to be male, with a light complexion and a noticeable limp to his walk. alani s charge for willfully damaging, destroying, disabling, or wrecking an aircraft. american airlines has been in a bitter dispute with the union that represents its more than 12,000 mechanics, at one time
we also talked about ied devices on two vehicles. i would like to clarify that and say there were two ieds on one vehicle and we are in the process of disabling the other with the assistance of defense forces. was there anything to do with it? we believe not. there is a real heightened sense within the communities, people are being very vigilant and i congratulate them and encourage that. we don t believe they were any threat. what about the coordination together? we don t have any information to that extent. to take preventative precautions, that is what they are doing.
lynn jones me right here on the beat. good to joan you, ari. let me play the sound the viewers are playing for the first time, which is trump picked someone to be acting attorney general who said russian interference did not even occur. what is your reaction to that? is he wrong and does that affect his ability to oversee this probe? well, i associate myself with the views that your previous guest at a minimum there is a horrible appearance here that in and of itself should cause mr. whitaker to request an ethics opinion, to tee up the process for obtaining an ethics opinion to assess he has an appearance that the disabling and as to which he should recuse himself. as a practical matter, we all know that s not going to happen the reason he was happened picked on this job, unmistakably he gave an opinion to the president under no circumstances would we have a recusing of
little incremental step as a positive development. they touted the punggye-ri, you know, nuclear test site demolition as as a good sign, even though there was a lot of skepticism about whether their nuclear capabilities were really affected. and they re saying this is a good sign, a positive step forward. but it s important to point out, poppy. when i interviewed the scientists who were overseeing the sohae launch site a few years ago, they denied any involvement in north korea s nuclear program and said they were only developing satellites for peaceful purposes. so if that s true, is this nuclear disarmament or the disabling of a satellite station. these are new steps. let s go to the pentagon. barbara starr is there. barbara, you just heard what will reported. and people will be asking this morning, is this proof? is this proof that the president s plan, that president trump s plan is working? that it s getting north korea to bend? what are you hearing? well, let s start with wha