In brief: Flight controls fine in UPS plane crash

Birmingham, Ala. – Federal investigators said Saturday they haven’t found any problems with the controls in a UPS cargo jet that crashed while landing in Alabama, killing the two pilots.

National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt said the cockpit controls in the A300 aircraft appeared to be working before the crash, and they matched the positions of the airplane’s flaps and rudder.

Sumwalt’s comments came during a news conference Saturday at Birmingham’s airport, where investigators are still sifting through the wreckage of the twin-engine aircraft.

Investigators previously said they did not see any problems with the plane’s engines, but that a cockpit warning went off seconds before the crash. The alarm, called a sink rate warning, indicated the plane was descending faster than normal.

Mexican army collars top cartel leader

Mexico City – A top leader of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel was captured Saturday in a military operation near the Texas border, the second major capture of a drug capo since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office last December.

Mexico’s government said the army netted Mario Armando Ramirez Trevino, a drug boss in Reynosa who had been vying to take over the cartel since the arrest of the Gulf’s top capo, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, alias “El Coss,” last September. Some say he succeeded while others say the cartel continues to be split into factions.

Rail company shows proof of insurance

Ottawa – A Canadian government agency has determined that the U.S. rail company whose runaway train crashed into a small Quebec town, killing 47 people last month, has adequate insurance to keep operating for the next month and a half.

The Canadian Transportation Agency said the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway provided evidence it had adequate third-party liability insurance coverage to operate from Aug. 20 to Oct. 1, 2013. The agency’s decision late Friday reversed an Aug. 13 order that would have halted the railroad’s operations from early next week.

The agency said the rail company provided new facts and information demonstrating it had adequate third-party liability insurance for the short term.