WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the execution would be “public.”
Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice News on Wednesday, said the execution of Hasan will take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3. Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth said.
Hegseth spoke to the outlet aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier while visiting the long-deployed crew, who supported the Iran war, before their arrival at their home port in San Diego.
When asked if Hasan had made any final requests or reached out to the Trump administration, Hegseth simply replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3rd.”
Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution will be livestreamed and that more details would follow.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell had said Monday that President Donald Trump had approved the execution of Hasan.
Trump has previously been critical of public executions in Iran, at times using the possibility of protesters being killed by the Iranian government as a possible rationale for military action. Those warnings preceded his ultimate choice to attack Iran at the end of February over its ballistic missiles and the risk of it developing nuclear weapons.
“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 14 of this year. “It’s stopping and there’s no plan for executions.”
He repeated that claim on Jan. 20 at a White House press briefing, saying: “We let them know that if that happens, that will be a very bad day for them. And they decided not to do it. They didn’t hang the people.”
Slightly more than a month later in his State of the Union address, Trump said, “We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.”
The White House on Thursday immediately referred questions about the plans for the livestreamed execution to the Pentagon.
However, experts on military law said Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution.
“It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions,” Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law.
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building where soldiers were were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun.
During the trial it was revealed that Hasan spent weeks planning the deadly attack, and his preparation included videotaping a sales clerk showing him how to change the magazine on the pistol that he purchased. He would later go to a gun range outside Austin and ask for advice on how to reload with speed and precision from an instructor.
Soldiers later testified that Hasan’s rapid reloading made it all but impossible to stop the shooting. Investigators recovered 146 shell casings inside the building and dozens more outside, where Hasan shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.
Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. A military judge barred him from presenting that as a defense during his trial. Hasan made almost no effort to defend himself in court, telling jurors when he acted as his own counsel that evidence would show he was the shooter and describing himself as a soldier who had “switched sides.”
Hegseth said the military hasn’t executed a servicemember by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.
FILE - This undated photo provided by the Bell County Sheriff's Department shows former Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan. (Bell County Sheriff's Department via AP, File)
The U.S. Army found systemic safety breakdowns behind last year’s midair collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter near Washington, D.C., and recommended changes to prevent future tragedies.
The Army report — completed in May and released publicly Thursday after months of pressure from the victims' families — identified failures involving air traffic control, helicopter routes, training and safety practices. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the report hours before it was released.
The deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil in over two decades happened when the helicopter collided with the descending airliner as it approached the runway, sending both plummeting into the icy Potomac River and killing 67.
The Army report highlighted how the air traffic controller at Reagan could have prevented the crash, but it also acknowledged the military’s own failings and other contributing factors.
Tim Lilley, a former Army Black Hawk pilot whose son Sam Lilley was the airliner's first officer, said the report leaves important questions unanswered. Parts were redacted, and responsibility for the Army's failures was assigned broadly rather than to individuals.
“The Army owes the families and the American public a full accounting of how these risks were allowed to persist, who was responsible for the decisions that allowed them to persist and what will be done to make sure this never happens again,” said Lilley, now a commercial jet captain.
The Army acknowledged that in a statement Thursday.
“We recognize the families’ need for answers and remain committed to transparency regarding the Army’s review,” it said.
While the report largely reinforces the National Transportation Safety Board's conclusions, the civilian investigation was broader and emphasized years of missed warnings by the Federal Aviation Administration along with a weak military safety culture.
The Army faulted the air traffic controller for not giving the helicopter crew more precise information about the approaching jet and for not warning the jet’s pilot about the helicopter. After the crash, the FAA prohibited controllers from relying on pilots to maintain visual separation in busy airspace.
The report recommended looking beyond Washington to examine military helicopter operations in other major cities for similar risks. An Army official said the review of helicopter flights in other cities, including Los Angeles and the Seattle-Tacoma region, is ongoing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly.
The lieutenant general who authored the report cited “breakdowns across all layers of conflict management” but singled out two failed radio transmissions that contributed to the helicopter crew not identifying the jet. The military pilots' night-vision goggles also restricted their view and made it hard to spot the plane amid the city lights.
The poorly designed helicopter route allowed a scant 75 feet (23 meters) of vertical separation between a helicopter and a plane landing on the airport's secondary runway, assuming helicopters stayed near the riverbank, which the route didn't require. This did not allow enough separation to account for the accepted level of error in a Black Hawk’s altimeter, and the NTSB found the helicopter was flying nearly 100 feet (30 meters) higher than its instruments read.
The NTSB said in a letter to the Army last week that it was pleased with the Army's progress on seven of its eight safety recommendations. That contrasts with the FAA’s failure to implement roughly a third of the recommendations aimed at the agency.
The Army said it has strengthened helicopter crew training, and has inspected and reconfigured 3,585 helicopters after discovering the crashed Black Hawk's ADS-B Out system, which broadcasts its location, hadn't been working for some time.
The military is also improving its monitoring of safety risks and working with the FAA to share information about close calls.
Families of the crash victims said the Army's findings strengthen their case for legislation requiring aircraft to have technology that helps pilots detect nearby traffic.
“It’s a simple concept anyone can understand: aircraft should be able to see each other in the sky. The technology is proven. All that’s required is the political will to do the right thing,” the Families of Flight 5342 group said in a statement Thursday.
“We have waited long enough. We waited for the NTSB. We waited for the Army. Both investigations are complete, and both make clear that collision avoidance technology must be part of the solution. There is nothing left for Congress to wait for,” they said.
The House and Senate have passed separate aviation safety bills but have yet to agree on a final version.
Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed.
FILE - Search efforts are seen around a wreckage site of a deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Jan. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
