Collision between helicopter and jetliner kills 67 in nation’s worst air disaster in a generation
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ARLINGTON, Va. — A midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight killed all 67 people aboard the two aircraft, officials said Thursday as they scrutinized the actions of the military pilot in the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter of a century.
At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter apparently flew into the path of the jet late Wednesday while the plane was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, just across the river from Washington, officials said. The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members. Three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.
For the record:
6:17 p.m. Jan. 30, 2025An earlier version of this report said that the National Safety Council estimates that Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident — slightly more than 1%. The NSC reports that, for 2022, the death rate was 1.5 per 10,000 vehicles, or about 0.015%.
President Trump said at a White House news conference that no one had survived.
“We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” said John Donnelly, the fire chief in the nation’s capital.
Passengers aboard a flight that crashed into the Potomac River included six members of a Boston skating club returning from U.S. competition in Kansas.
Air crash investigations can take months, and federal investigators told reporters they would not speculate on what caused the collision.
The flight data recorders, for example, were still underwater, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said.
The plane was found upside-down in three sections in waist-deep water, and first responders were searching an area of the Potomac as far south as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, roughly three miles south of the airport, Donnelly said. The helicopter wreckage was also found. Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.
American Airlines Chief Executive Robert Isom said the plane was making a normal approach when “the military aircraft came into the path” of the jet.
One air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes when the collision happened, according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration obtained by the Associated Press.
Those duties are often divided between two people, but the airport typically combines the separate roles at 9:30 p.m, once traffic begins to slow down. On Wednesday, the tower supervisor directed that they be combined earlier.
“The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the report said. A person familiar with the matter, however, said the tower staffing that night was at a normal level.
The positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks, during shift changes or when air traffic is slow, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.
The FAA has long struggled with a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kan., carrying, among others, a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches, and four union steamfitters from the Washington area.
A top Army aviation official said the crew of the helicopter, a Black Hawk, was “very experienced” and familiar with the congested flying that occurs daily around Washington.
“Both pilots had flown this specific route before, at night. This wasn’t something new to either one of them,” said Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation.
The helicopter’s maximum allowed altitude at the time of the crash was 200 feet, Koziol said. It was not immediately clear whether it exceeded that limit, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said elevation seemed to be a factor in the collision.
Koziol said investigators need to analyze the flight data before making conclusions about altitude.
Trump opened the White House news conference with a moment of silence honoring the victims, calling it an “hour of anguish” for the country.
But he spent most of his time casting political blame, lashing out at the Biden administration and diversity efforts at the FAA, saying they had led to slipping standards — even as he acknowledged that the cause of the crash was unknown.
Without evidence, Trump blamed air traffic controllers, the helicopter pilots and Democratic policies at federal agencies. He claimed the FAA was “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative.”
Inside Reagan National Airport, the mood was somber Thursday morning as stranded passengers waited for flights to resume, sidestepping camera crews and staring out the terminal’s windows at the Potomac, where recovery efforts were barely visible in the distance.
Aster Andemicael had been at the airport since Wednesday evening with her elderly father, who was flying to Indiana to visit family. She spent much of the long night thinking about the victims and their families.
“I’ve been crying since yesterday,” she said, her voice cracking. “This is devastating.”
Flights resumed at the airport around midday Thursday.
Deadliest U.S. crash since November 2001
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, N.Y., just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard.
The last major fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, N.Y. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, along with one person on the ground, a death toll of 50.
Passengers on Wednesday’s flight included a group of figure skaters, their coaches and family members who were returning from a development camp that followed the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
A look at the deadliest commercial plane crashes in the U.S.
Two of those coaches were identified by the Kremlin as Russian figure skaters Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships and competed twice in the Olympics. The Skating Club of Boston lists them as coaches and their son, Maxim Naumov, is a competitive figure skater for the U.S.
Club CEO Doug Zeghibe described the group as highly talented, saying their loss would resonate through the skating community for years.
“Folks are just stunned by this,” Zeghibe said. “They are like family to us.”
Collision happened in tightly controlled airspace
The FAA said the midair crash occurred before 9 p.m. EST in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over three miles south of the White House and the Capitol.
American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 400 feet and a speed of about 140 mph when it rapidly lost altitude over the Potomac, according to data from its radio transponder. The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-700 twin-engine jet, manufactured in 2004, can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.
A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers directed the jet to a shorter runway, and flight-tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway.
Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight.
A crew member said the aircraft was in sight and requested “visual separation” — allowing it to fly closer than otherwise might be allowed if pilots did not see the plane. The controller approved the request.
The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25, pass behind the CRJ.”
Seconds later, the two aircraft collided.
Baldor, Copp, Melley and Brumfield write for the Associated Press. Melley reported from London and Brumfield from Cockeysville, Md. Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Meg Kinnard, Chris Megerian, Lea Skene and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed to this report.
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