answers

The Senate Armed Services Committee is “concerned” about the U.S. Air Force’s current plan to retire its E–11A Battlefield Airborne
Communications Node (BACN) aircraft in Fiscal Year 2028. Legislators want more details about how the service expects to plug any capability gaps that might result from axing the highly specialized communications planes. The Air Force abruptly announced plans to retire the E-11A fleet, which has more than doubled in size in recent years, and supplant it with new space-based capabilities back in April.

A formal request for a briefing on the Air Force’s plans surrounding the E-11A fleet is included in a report accompanying a draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2027 Fiscal Year. The Senate Armed Services Committee released a full copy of the proposed legislation and the report yesterday.

The Air Force currently has 7 BACN jets in service, which are based on several different models from the Bombardier Global Express family of business jets. The BACN package has also flown operationally in the past on one of NASA’s high-flying WB-57F research aircraft and a fleet of now-retired EQ-4B Global Hawk drones.

“The committee is aware of the Department of the Air Force’s decision to cancel the E–11 Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) capability, which has historically provided critical communications relay and data translation functions enabling joint and coalition operations, particularly in contested and communications-degraded environments,” the report says. “The committee is concerned about the operational risk associated with the loss of the E–11 BACN capability and the lack of clarity regarding the Department’s plan to mitigate resulting gaps in airborne communications, data integration, and battle management.”

“Therefore, the committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to provide a briefing to the congressional defense committees, not later than March 31, 2027, on the Department’s plan to address capability gaps resulting from the cancellation of the E–11 BACN capability,” it continues.

The briefing needs to at least provide the following:

• “A detailed justification for the decision to cancel the E–11 BACN capability, including cost, survivability, and operational considerations.”
• “An assessment of the operational risks created by the cancellation, including impacts on joint all-domain command and control, communications interoperability, and support to combatant commander requirements.”
• “A description of alternative capabilities, programs, or concepts of operation the Department plans to employ to replicate or replace E–11 BACN functionality, including any space-based, airborne, or ground-based solutions.”
• “Associated timelines, funding requirements, and acquisition strategies for such alternatives.”
• “A description of how the Department will ensure continuity of communications relay and gateway capabilities in contested environments during any transition period.”
• “An assessment of impacts to joint and coalition interoperability, including any risks to ongoing operations or contingency plans.”

Currently, the BACN aircraft provide an extremely valuable airborne communications gateway that can be used to relay data across various waveforms between platforms in the air, at sea, and on land. The planes offer a vital way to ‘translate’ between data-sharing systems that may not otherwise be able to ‘talk’ to each other. E-11As can also provide a vital node between line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight links. During the conflict in Afghanistan, the BACN aircraft became known for providing this service and creating an active data-sharing rebroadcasting network in a country where mountainous terrain could often limit the reach of line-of-sight links.

The Air Force first announced its intention to divest the E-11A fleet earlier this year as part of the rollout of its annual budget request. The service offered few additional details publicly at that time, beyond that the Hybrid Satellite Communications (STACOM) Terminal program would provide a “bridge” capability in the near term.

Hybrid SATCOM is a capability the Air Force is working to field on a variety of aircraft, including aerial refueling tankers and cargo planes, which is intended to give them better access to government-owned and operated and commercial satellite constellations. SpaceX’s Starlink network and its government-focused cousin, Starshield, are already in particular widespread and still-growing use across the U.S. military. Distributed constellations of satellites, like the ones used for Starlink and Starshield, to support various mission requirements are changing warfighting, and the pace of those developments is accelerating.

An annual force structure report that the Pentagon released last month offers some further insights into the Air Force’s argument for retiring the E-11As.

“Predicated on the successful deployment of next-generation orbital systems, the E-11A fleet is scheduled for divestment in FY 2028,” the force structure report says. “These space-based assets will provide equivalent relay and datalink capabilities, superseding current E-11A functions and enabling a modernized transition of the mission set. Consequently, all cost savings will be reinvested into the replacement capabilities.”

“As part of a broader strategy to align resources with the most pressing operational needs, the Department of the Air Force will divest its fleet of seven E-11A aircraft, with the action planned for FY 2028,” the report adds. “This decision allows for the strategic reallocation of fiscal resources to fund more critical, high-priority service requirements and accelerate modernization efforts in other key areas.”

The Air Force’s decision regarding the E-11A came without any real warning, at least publicly. As noted, the service had significantly increased the fleet size in recent years, driven in part by the retirement of the EQ-4Bs. The aircraft had looked set to continue serving for years to come.

Demand for the capabilities BACN offers has gone well beyond Afghanistan. The aircraft continue to be heavily utilized to support active combat operations, including as part of Operation Epic Fury against Iran this year. The platform was also utilized during the mission to capture former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in January.

At the same time, there are questions about the survivability of the E-11A going forward as a non-stealthy business jet-based aircraft, especially in the context of a future high-end fight. These concerns are even pronounced for the BACN aircraft given that a key aspect of their mission set to date has involved flying within range of line-of-sight links. A growing threat ecosystem that pushes the planes further and further from the forces they are expected to support would challenge their utility.

China and Russia, in particular, are developing very long-range anti-air missiles, and the Air Force itself has warned that designs with ranges of 1,000 miles could be in service by 2050. Ever-more sophisticated anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) ‘bubbles’ will be an increasing challenge for traditional non-stealthy combat support aircraft, not just BACN, as time goes on. Even smaller adversaries like Iran and North Korea, and even some non-state actors, are continuing to field more threatening air defense systems, as well.

As an aside, the U.S. Army now views very long-range air-launched drones as a key capability to help ensure the relevance of its new Bombardier Global Express-based ME-11B High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) surveillance and reconnaissance planes in future large-scale conflicts. You can read more about the plans for HADES here.

All this being said, there is also something of an interesting parallel, very broadly speaking, between the Air Force’s current plans for the E-11A fleet and its failed Pentagon-backed attempt to cancel the E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft program. The arguments for axing the E-7 were also heavily rooted in plans for new space-based capabilities, concerns about the vulnerability of a non-stealthy aircraft in future high-end conflicts, and a general desire to shift resources to other priorities. Congress ultimately intervened to save the Wedgetail program, and the Air Force and the Pentagon have now completely changed their tone, at least publicly, on the matter.

“I know our department had taken the position that it was … other satellite ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities] that was probably going to be capable of a lot of that in the future,” Secretary Pete Hegseth said in response to a question about the E-7 at a hearing in May. “But I think that mindset was indicative of a mindset that we’ve shed, which is the divest-to-invest mindset, which was an austerity mindset, that we’re going to get continuing resolution after continuing resolution. So, we [sic] got to get rid of these platforms in order to invest in these platforms. And there are gaps that need to still be filled. And there are systems that still need to be funded that are used on the battlefield right now, say, MQ-9s, A-10s, you name it.”

Hegseth’s comments here would seem to reflect a logic that one could also apply to the E-11A fleet, at least based on the arguments the Air Force has put forward for its divestment so far.

Whether Congress intervenes now to save the BACN aircraft remains to be seen. The Air Force is still expecting to continue flying the jets through next year at least.

The Air Force will now have a chance to more formally argue before members of the Senate Armed Services Committee for moving ahead with its plan to axe the E-11As.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Those of us who have a fear of flying, also known as aviophobia, probably have all the same questions.

Flying fills me with dread, meaning every holiday is a rollercoaster of anticipation and anxiety. Aviophobia, or fear of flying, is remarkably widespread and, for those of us who suffer from it, likely stems from the same fundamental issue — our brains struggling to cope with an environment where we feel utterly powerless. Chances are we’re all asking the same questions:.

• Can turbulence bring down a plane?
• Can someone open the cabin door mid-flight?
• What if the plane gets hit by lightning?
• What happens if an engine fails?
• What happens if we hit a bird?
• Are budget airlines less safe?

Sound familiar? Sadly, while anyone can turn to Reddit or Facebook for tips from fellow nervous passengers, very few of us ever get the chance to quiz the real experts — the pilots themselves. Fortunately, I managed to put my questions to Simon Tranter, a pilot with 18,000 flight hours spanning a 17-year career in the Royal Air Force and 25 years as a commercial pilot at British Airways who is now head of training at EmPower Flight, reports the Express.

I also had the opportunity to speak with Dan Bubb, a former commercial pilot who currently teaches aviation courses at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Are budget airlines actually less safe?

“In the aviation world, the price for your ticket dictates your legroom and whether you get a free sandwich – it has zero bearing on safety,” said Simon. “Every single airline operating in our skies must adhere to the exact same stringent regulatory laws and safety standards. Budget airlines actually tend to fly younger fleets of aircraft, which means they are equipped with the newest safety technology. They save money on business models, not on maintenance or pilot training.”

Dan continued: “Budget airlines are just as safe as safe as more expensive airlines. Even though the pay scale is different, all airline pilots are trained and held to the same rigorous standard whether they fly a 15-passenger Beech 99 or a 400-passenger Boeing 747.”

Can turbulence bring down a plane?

“Aircraft are engineered to withstand forces far greater than anything nature can throw at them,” Simon explained.

“Higher levels of turbulence can be uncomfortable for the pilots, crew and passengers, but generally the most turbulence will affect a flight is intermittent and rather like driving slowly over cobblestones. Most importantly, if you don’t have your seatbelt fastened, a sudden turbulent bump can cause you to spill your drink – that’s one of the main reasons we ask you to buckle up.”

Could a passenger to open the aircraft door?

“It is physically impossible for a passenger to open the plane door because aircraft doors are designed as ‘plug doors’,” Simon stated. “Due to the air pressure inside the cabin being much higher than the thin air outside at 35,000 feet, the cabin pressure effectively seals the door shut with thousands of pounds of force. You could get the strongest person on Earth, give them a crowbar, and they still couldn’t open that door while we are in flight.”

Dan added: “In the past, we have seen passengers try to open the door, but they were unsuccessful.”

Are cabin crew trained to hide concern during an emergency that passengers are not aware of?

Dan explained: “Cabin crew are trained to handle emergencies with calm and discretion to avoid alarming passengers. Even though the situation might be stressful, pilots and flight attendants are trained to remain calm and keep passengers calm.”

Simon added: “Cabin crew are primarily safety professionals and they undergo rigorous, regular emergency training. If you look at a crew member and they look calm, it’s because they are in control of the situation.”

What happens if the landing gear fails to deploy at landing?

“This is something we practice to perfection in flight simulators,” Simon said. “Aircraft have multiple backup systems to get the wheels down. If the main hydraulic system fails, we can use an alternate system, or even let gravity ‘free-fall’ the gear into place where it locks automatically. In the extremely rare event that the gear completely jams, planes are designed to land safely on their bellies. Fire crews might decide to foam the runway, and the aircraft slides to a halt. It makes for a dramatic news headline, but it is entirely survivable.”

What happens if an engine fails?

“Modern airliners are built with massive amounts of redundancy,” said Simon. “If one engine fails, the aircraft is completely capable of climbing, cruising and landing safely on the remaining engine. Even if both engines were to fail (which is virtually unheard of), a plane does not suddenly drop but instead becomes a very large glider. From a normal cruising altitude, an airliner can glide for about 80 to 100 miles, giving us plenty of time to head for a safe runway and to re-start the engines in the glide.”

Dan revealed he has actually witnessed an engine failure mid-flight – it occurred during take-off while transporting passengers to the Grand Canyon: “We shut down the failed engine, declared an emergency and landed on the single, good engine without any problem.”

How likely is a plane crash?

“Statistically, you are far safer in a commercial airliner than you are walking down the pavement or driving to the supermarket,” said Simon. “The International Air Transport Association (IATA) say there is ‘one fatal accident for every 5.6 million flights (2021-2025)’. You’d have to fly every single day for thousands of years to statistically encounter an accident.”

Dan explained: “Given the rigorous training through which pilots have to do, the chance of a commercial passenger plane crashing is slim. As a colleague of mine likes to say, you have much higher chances of getting into a car accident on your way to the airport than in a commercial passenger plane.”

Why do passengers have to switch off mobiles during take-off and landing? Will they disrupt the plane’s system?

“The technical reason is that older phones used to occasionally cause a harmless but annoying ‘click-click-buzz’ sound in the pilots’ headsets, similar to putting a mobile phone right next to an old audio speaker,” Simon revealed.

“The real-world reason is that take-off and landing are the most dynamic parts of the flight. We need you alert and not looking at a screen, in case we need to give you important instructions.”

Dan supported this, stating: “Take-off and landing are the most critical phases of flight, which is why flight attendants are adamant about enforcing this regulation.”

Could a passenger shatter a window and what would happen if they did?

“No,” Simon stated. “The windows you see are made of incredibly tough, multi-layered aerospace acrylic, not household glass. They can easily withstand immense pressure and impact. If an outer pane were to crack, the inner layers are more than strong enough to hold the cabin pressure perfectly.”

Meanwhile, Dan also noted it would be “difficult for a passenger to break a window”, but referenced a harrowing 2018 incident in which a window shattered, apparently as a result of an exploding engine, tragically claiming the life of a woman who was partially sucked out.

Is it safe to fly during a storm? What happens if the plane gets hit by lightning?

“We don’t fly through severe storms,” said Simon. “Our onboard weather radar allows us to see them miles in advance and simply steer around them. If a plane does happen to get struck by lightning, it’s surprisingly uneventful. The skin of the aircraft acts like a protective shield (a Faraday cage). The electricity strikes the plane, flows harmlessly along the outside skin and through specific lightning conductors, and leaves through the tail. Passengers might hear a loud crack or bang, but the aircraft systems are built to handle it effortlessly.”

In 2019, a plane landing in Cardiff Airport from Ibiza was hit by lightning and passengers reported a “huge bang”. The flight landed safely with no reported injuries.

Are bird strikes dangerous?

“Most bird strikes happen at low altitudes, when the aircraft is at slower speeds near airports, and the vast majority of them are entirely harmless events”, said Simon. “Aircraft engines and structures are specifically designed and tested to ingest birds without catastrophic failure. As a precaution, if we suspect a bird strike, we will always make an assessment of any possible damage and let our engineers give the plane a thorough inspection.”

Nevertheless, Dan warned that bird strikes “can be very dangerous”, pointing to the famous incident where Captain Chelsey Sullenberger landed his US Airways Airbus on the Hudson River in New York City after a flock of Canadian geese struck and disabled both of the aircraft’s engines.

What happens if the pilot arrives at work extremely fatigued?

“We have a very strict, no-blame safety culture in aviation called fatigue reporting,” Simon explained. “If a pilot hasn’t slept well or feels unfit to fly for any reason, they simply log into the system and declare themselves unfit due to fatigue. The airline immediately calls in a standby pilot, no questions asked. There is absolutely no pressure to fly if you aren’t at 100%.”

How much does a computer control a plane compared to how much the pilot controls it?

“The computer — or autopilot in an aircraft — is like a highly sophisticated cruise control on a modern car,” Simon noted. “It’s an incredible tool that does the heavy lifting of flying the aircraft while the pilots are managing the busy flight.

“However, the computer only does what we tell it to do. We manually fly the aircraft during take-off and generally during the landing. The humans are always the ones making the strategic decisions. Occasionally, the autopilot will land the aircraft but this is only in situations of extreme fog when the aircraft is programmed by the pilots for an automatic landing and the airport is specifically authorised to apply the very special protections and safeguards needed for an ‘autoland’.”

What stops pilots from becoming distracted or nodding off on lengthy flights?

“We have highly structured protocols whilst airborne to keep us engaged,” Simon explained. “We are constantly monitoring aircraft performance, the autopilot function, fuel logs, cross-checking weather reports and communicating with air traffic control. On ultra-long-haul flights, we carry an ‘augmented crew’ (three or four pilots total). This allows us to take turns sleeping in dedicated pilot bunk beds built into the aircraft, ensuring that the two pilots at the controls are always fresh and focused.”

Is flying at night more dangerous?

“Not at all,” Simon responded. “In fact, at night the high-intensity lights of other aircraft and runways stand out perfectly against the dark background.”

Have you ever seen another aircraft too close to yours?

“Not in civil flying, but yes as an RAF fighter pilot!” said Simon. “Furthermore, all commercial planes are fitted with a system called TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). It talks to other aircraft automatically and if another plane ever wandered even slightly too close, our cockpits would warn us and tell us exactly what manoeuvre to fly to stay completely safe.”

What does it take to become a commercial airline pilot?

“It’s a rigorous journey,” Simon explained. “It starts with strict medical clearance, followed by months of ground school training where you learn everything from meteorology to aerodynamics. From there, you start in small, single-engine aircraft to master the basics, progress to twin-engine planes, and eventually step into full-flight simulators to learn the specifics of the jet you will be flying for the airline.

“After a pilot passes all their simulator checks, they step into the real cockpit with real passengers. However, they are not amateurs. They are already fully qualified commercial pilots. During this phase, they fly with a highly experienced training captain (someone like me) sitting next to them, guiding them through the real-world nuances of airline operations until they are completely polished.”

FInally, what’s the most frightening thing you’ve ever had to deal with while flying?

“Honestly, after many years flying fighter jets in the Royal Air Force and later as an airline captain, the thing that would raise my heart rate in commercial aviation is a very, very occasional turbulent and gusty crosswind landing towards the maximum crosswind component allowed,” said Simon.

“But in fairness, after 44 years as a professional pilot it’s not overly difficult, it’s simply a matter of following procedure. As our training is so intensive, when something unexpected does happen – like a sudden change in weather or a technical glitch – fear doesn’t enter the equation. Your brain instantly switches into ‘training mode’ and you calmly execute the checklist. It feels like just another busy day at the office.”

Meanwhile, Dan revealed his most terrifying moment in the cockpit came when an engine failed during take-off while carrying passengers to the Grand Canyon. Despite the harrowing ordeal, he recalled: “We shut down the failed engine, declared an emergency and landed on the single, good engine without any problem. Even though we appeared calm and collected, our adrenaline was pumping.”

WASHINGTON — The terms of a deal to end President Trump’s war with Iran remained a secret on Monday as both sides claimed victory and the months-long conflict reached a nebulous end.

The memorandum of understanding, providing a rough framework to conclude the war, was signed digitally Sunday, with a ceremony scheduled to take place on Friday in Switzerland, U.S. officials said.

Trump hailed the document as a breakthrough after months of negotiations. Yet its broad contours remained unclear more than a day after the deal was announced, as each side offered conflicting public messaging about what had been agreed.

Iran said it would continue regulating traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic paradigm shift from the prewar status quo that was denied by the White House. The two sides expressed disagreement over whether the status of Iran’s ballistic missile program would be addressed in future negotiations, or whether Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was a part of the deal.

And Trump administration officials rejected Iranian claims that the United States would provide immediate sanctions relief as misleading “spin.”

Hours later, another U.S. official suggested that Iran, in fact, might receive some relief at the front end.

“We are prepared to release frozen funds, and we are prepared to release sanctions,” a senior U.S. official told reporters on a call. “And we’ll do some small gestures of that in the beginning, if they make some small gestures to us that show they’re willing to meet their commitments as well.

“We’ll know over the next two to three weeks whether those understandings will turn into actual agreement,” the official added.

Trump started the war in February citing Iran’s nuclear program, which had expanded after he withdrew from a prior nuclear agreement negotiated by President Obama. That deal capped more than two years of intensive diplomacy but ultimately failed under the weight of political criticism from Republicans — led by Trump — over its inclusion of sanctions relief for Tehran.

Trump administration officials said the new agreement would include a commitment from Iran not to develop or purchase nuclear weapons — a vow the Islamic Republic has repeatedly made through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Obama-era deal and a religious edict from the late supreme leader. Yet the enforcement mechanisms for policing Iran’s nuclear work were left to negotiate another day.

Iran could get sanctions relief

In an interview with CBS News, Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that Iran could get significant sanctions relief — and up to $300 billion in reconstruction funds — if they abide by U.S. terms, such as the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important commercial waterways.

“Our expectation is that the strait is going to be opened in a toll-free way for the long term, and that’s the sort of thing that we’re going to figure out in these technical negotiations,” Vance said.

In a separate interview, he described the president’s policy as “extending an open hand” to Tehran.

“The hard-liners of the Iranian system will overemphasize the benefits that Iran gets,” he added, “while underemphasizing all the things that they have to concede, and all the things that they have to provide, in order to get these benefits.”

Uncertainty across the region

The news of peace came with a sense of bewilderment and uncertainty in a region that suffered as collateral damage through months of war.

Sunni Arab states that once hoped Iran would emerge weakened from the war issued tepid support for an agreement that could ultimately leave the fate of their oil exports at the whims of an emboldened adversary. And Israeli leaders, across the political aisle, expressed deep concerns over the deal in private, warning they would not be bound by an agreement to which they were not a party.

Israel’s decisions moving forward — particularly in Lebanon— may ultimately decide whether the agreement survives over the next 60 days, when Washington and Tehran plan on ironing out its more technical details.

Hours after word of the signing came out, a stream of cars crowded the highway leading to southern Lebanon, full of displaced families desperate to check on homes and villages they hadn’t seen for more than 100 days.

They did so in defiance of Lebanese officials, who called on people to remain where they were until an official end to war in Lebanon — a secondary front in the larger U.S.-Israel war on Iran that has nevertheless seen staggering levels of destruction.

A woman and her children return to their Lebanese village Monday following the ceasefire announcement.

(Mohammed Zaatari / Ap Photo/mohammed Zaatari)

In the more than three months since the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah attacked Israel, nearly 3,800 people have been killed, and almost a quarter of the country’s 6 million people are displaced. Israeli troops occupy more than 10% of Lebanese territory, leaving a trail of destruction that has seen swaths of the country’s south all but razed.

‘Everything is gone’

None of that discouraged Hassan Shareef from leaving where he was staying in Beirut at 7 a.m. to head to Nabatieh, one of south Lebanon’s largest cities and a frequent target of Israeli strikes in recent weeks, to check on his tailoring business.

“I wasn’t afraid. I had to come. But what I saw would make you cry,” he said. “Everything is gone. My house, I can’t live in it. And the business is destroyed.”

Aqeel Khalaf, an herbalist, hit the road in the early morning with his brother, son and daughter-in-law. They reached Nabatieh in two hours.

Yet it was less of a homecoming than Khalaf hoped: Israeli troops were still stationed near his village, a few miles down the road from where he stood in Nabatieh’s central market. Their house was tantalizingly close, but for the moment it might as well have been on the moon.

“It’s hard for me, but the Lebanese army told us we can’t go yet. We have no choice,” Khalaf said. “Maybe in 24 hours, when things crystallize with the deal.”

He could at least check on his shop here in the central market, though he already knew there would be damage: The family regularly checked satellite images of the area and saw the building was hit about a week ago.

Standing before it, Khalaf saw how the wall of the adjacent building had toppled onto the ground floor, flooding the shop with rubble and coating everything with a film of fine gray dust. A nearby blast had collapsed the roof.

“Nabatieh was hit very hard this time,” he said. Still, he could salvage something, he said, pointing to his son as he fished out boxes of herbal treatments from under the rubble.

Two ceasefires in the last two months, forged during U.S.-led talks between the Lebanese and Israeli governments but without Hezbollah or Iran’s involved, were broken as soon as they were announced. A previous ceasefire from November 2024 saw Hezbollah stop all attacks while Israel continued military operations in south Lebanon.

This iteration of the truce appeared to have more success: On Monday, Hezbollah launched no missiles but announced an attack on an Israeli force to stop its advance; and the Israeli military mostly stayed its fire as well, barring a number of shelling incidents and a drone strike on a car in the village of Kfar Tebnit that injured a journalist and killed one person, according to Lebanese media.

Obstacles to a durable peace

Lebanese army units, meanwhile, deployed in parts of the south, barring motorists from reaching areas near Israeli troops. Lebanon’s army remained on the sidelines during the war, but 30 soldiers, including a general, having been killed in Israeli attacks since March 2. Hezbollah attacks killed at least 30 Israeli soldiers and one civilian contractor.

Obstacles to a more durable peace remain. Israeli officials insist on freedom of action against Hezbollah, and they will create a so-called security zone in Lebanon indefinitely so to protect Israel’s northern border. For its part, Hezbollah says it will respond to any attack and will continue fighting until Israel withdraws.

Though the truce appeared to be holding for now, Khalaf, who had raced to reopen his Nabatieh shop after the 2024 ceasefire, was waiting this time. For now, he would take what stock he could and open a shop in Sidon or Beirut.

“We have to work and feed our families. But the damage is too much this time. I’ll come back when things are better,” he said. “And my home too. When I get to see it, even if it’s a mound of rubble, I’ll pitch a tent on it and rebuild.”

Wilner reported from Washington and Bulos from Nabatieh.

While it might be true that the cases are progressing, families of the missing argue they are moving at a snail’s pace.

Since early December, Fault Lines has spent time with families who are pushing for accountability and pleading with the government to learn what happened to their loved ones.

In some cases, they have spent years without receiving any direct response.

“It gets harder every time my nephew asks when his father will come home and I don’t have any answers,” said Rosario Villon, whose brother, Jonathan Villon, has been missing for almost a year and a half.

The 31-year-old father of three was last seen on December 9, 2024, when he left to pick up groceries in his hometown of Guayaquil.

Addressing a vigil for Jonathan last December, Rosario explained the toll his disappearance has taken on her family.

“Seeing my mother cry for her son, not knowing what to do next to bring him home — it isn’t easy,” she said.

Fault Lines has reviewed footage of the day Jonathan was detained. Security cameras show soldiers patrolling Jonathan’s neighbourhood, Nueva Prosperina.

A neighbour’s mobile phone video also captures the moments after Jonathan was forced into the truck’s bed, under a wooden bench. The truck then drives off, and he has not been seen since.

The family recorded the licence plate numbers of the municipal vehicle the soldiers were using, but the military has refused to respond to requests about Jonathan’s case.

“We have the evidence, we have videos, we have the licence plates of the truck, and they won’t give us a concrete and exact answer. What happened to my husband?” asked Jonathan’s partner, Yadira Bohorquez.

Lawyers representing the family say the military simply declared that it had no operations in that area on that date, despite the video evidence.

“The case of Jonathan Villon is completely paralysed by the refusal of the Ministry of Defence to cooperate in handing over information that the Prosecutor’s Office has already requested,” said Fernando Bastias, a lawyer with CDH Guayaquil, a human rights nonprofit representing the family.

SEOUL, May 1 (UPI) — South Korean entertainment giant CJ ENM premiered its AI-hybrid feature film The House this week, presenting the low-budget occult thriller as a test case for how artificial intelligence could help revive a struggling film industry.

The 60-minute film, unveiled Thursday at CGV Yongsan I’Park Mall in Seoul, follows a young woman who can see dead souls after moving into a decrepit apartment building. It is scheduled to be released Friday on CJ ENM’s streaming platform TVING.

Taken on its own merits, The House is far from innovative. It scans as a fairly forgettable horror flick, leaning heavily on gloomy atmospherics, digital gore and jump scares in service of a paper-thin story.

But behind the scenes, the film represents a cutting-edge use of fast-evolving technology that dramatically reduces both costs and production time.

CJ ENM said the actors’ performances were filmed entirely indoors on a green-screen stage, while every background and visual effect was created with AI, using Google tools including Imagen, Nano Banana and Veo.

“We have expanded the production paradigm,” Jeong Chang-ik, head of CJ ENM’s AI Studio and lead producer of The House, said at a panel discussion after the premiere Thursday.

The film cost about $337,000 to produce — at least five times less than a comparable conventional production, Jeong said.

He added that the efficiency gains could be especially significant for genre films, disaster movies and other effects-heavy productions.

“From our perspective, there isn’t much difference in production costs between making a scene where a main character drinks coffee at a cafe and making a scene where that main character defeats a monster,” he said. “In reality, there is a huge difference, but in terms of AI, the difference is not much.”

Actor Kim Shin-yong, who plays a security guard in the film, said the process differed sharply from traditional chroma-key filming, where performers must imagine effects that are added later.

“I could perform while seeing the completed backgrounds in real time, which made immersion much better,” Kim said, adding that the entire shoot took just four days.

The rapid adoption of AI has raised alarm across the global entertainment industry, helping fuel strikes in Hollywood in 2023 amid concerns over job losses and creative control. But the technology is already being widely integrated across production pipelines.

The team behind The House said the goal is not to replace actors or creators, but to integrate AI into existing production workflows.

Ahn Sung-min, director of customer engineering at Google Cloud Korea, said AI is being used not to “take the place of creation,” but to help realize creators’ intent within the filmmaking process.

CJ ENM executives also pushed back on the idea that AI could replace human performers.

“We are actually certain that AI cannot replace the acting of actors,” Baek Hyun-jung, head of content innovation, said. “That’s why we designed this hybrid approach — to preserve the actor’s unique expressiveness while using AI for backgrounds and effects.”

The experiment comes as South Korea’s film industry faces mounting pressure from rising production costs, reduced investment and competition from streaming platforms.

Korean Film Council data showed theater admissions fell 13.8% in 2025 from a year earlier, while revenue from domestic films plunged 39.4%.

Despite the global popularity of Korean content, Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Chae Hwi-young said in September that the reality facing the country’s creative industries is one of “despair.”

He singled out the film sector as the most vulnerable, noting the number of commercial Korean productions has dropped from around 60 per year to about 20 in 2025.

“Investment has stopped, and the film production scene has run out of money,” Chae said. “The ecosystem of the film industry is collapsing to the point where filmmakers can’t make a living.”

Some A-list filmmakers have responded with dramatic measures such as “microbudget” productions. Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho’s 2025 film The Ugly was made for around $150,000 and performed respectably, drawing more than 1 million theatrical viewers before landing on Netflix.

Against that backdrop, AI is increasingly being seen as a potential lifeline for the industry.

For CJ ENM, The House builds on a growing slate of AI-driven projects, including the animated series Cat Biggie, released online last year.

The new film is less a finished template than a proof of concept. Its visual seams remain visible, and panelists acknowledged that AI tools still struggle with consistency, particularly in longer narrative works.

Still, executives said AI will likely become inseparable from mainstream filmmaking.

“I think AI will be the next generation after CGI,” Baek said. “The era in which the boundaries between regular movies and AI movies disappear will surely come quickly.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the federal government was not informed about the inclusion of CIA officers in an operation targeting a drug lab in the country’s north, adding that she is demanding answers from the US ambassador and state officials.