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The crash site of American Airlines Flight 5342 along the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, on Thursday.
Authorities say they will not speculate on the cause of the deadly midair crash between a regional passenger jet and a military helicopter Wednesday evening near Washington, D.C., despite President Trump’s apparently baseless assertions that the collision had been caused by diversity initiatives within the Federal Aviation Administration. Furthermore, The cause of the collision is unclear, and the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating. A preliminary report by the Federal Aviation Administration indicated that air traffic control staffing was “not normal” at the time of the crash. Moreover according to reports more than 60 people were killed when an American Airlines regional passenger jet collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on Wednesday and Crashed into the frigid Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Investigators believe there will likely be no survivors in the midair crash involving an American Airlines regional jet and a Black Hawk helicopter Wednesday night in the skies above the nation’s capital.
Pushing back on speculations, Inman said there was a very low likelihood that emergency departure mechanisms had been deployed to free surviving passengers.
There were no survivors after a regional passenger jet with 64 people onboard collided with a military helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River while approaching Ronald Reagan National airport on Wednesday night, Donald Trump and US officials have said. At least 28 bodies have been recovered from the plane and one from the helicopter by first responders working in what the Washington DC fire and emergency medical services chief, John A Donnelly, called “extremely frigid conditions”. Donnelly said he was confident they will ultimately be able to recover all of the bodies from the crash.
Federal investigators on Thursday recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the airplane involved in the collision. The recorders are currently at the National Transportation Safety Board labs for analysis, the agency said on Thursday evening. The Newly Elected President Donald Trump held a press conference on the crash during which he questioned the role of the helicopter pilot and air traffic control, and blamed Joe Biden’s administration as he injected politics into his response. In response to a question on why he believes DEI is responsible, Trump said: “Because I have common sense and unfortunately a lot of people don’t. We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level.” The president later signed an executive order on aviation safety that rolls back diversity initiatives and repeated to reporters claims without evidence that these contributed to Wednesday’s crash.
There were no survivors after a regional passenger jet with 64 people onboard collided with a military helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River while approaching Ronald Reagan National airport on Wednesday night, Donald Trump and US officials have said.
At least 28 bodies have been recovered from the plane and one from the helicopter by first responders working in what the Washington DC fire and emergency medical services chief, John A Donnelly, called “extremely frigid conditions”. Donnelly said he was confident they will ultimately be able to recover all of the bodies from the crash.
Federal investigators on Thursday recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the airplane involved in the collision. The recorders are currently at the National Transportation Safety Board labs for analysis, the agency said on Thursday evening.
The midair collision happened as the jet, operated by PSA Airlines on behalf of American Airlines, was attempting to land at Reagan just before 9 p.m. EST on Wednesday. The plane was traveling from Wichita, Kan. It carried 60 passengers and four crew members (two pilots and two flight attendants).
The U.S. Army Black Hawk carried three soldiers and was traveling from Fort Belvoir in Virginia, the Pentagon says. The three were “experienced” crew members taking part in a training exercise, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday morning. The jet was flying from south to north and lining up to land at the airport when it collided with the Black Hawk, which was flying from north to south, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said during a press conference. The two aircraft collided at a low altitude. According to audio archived by LiveATC.net, which provides live air traffic control broadcasts from air traffic control towers and radar facilities around the world, the plane had initially been cleared to land on runway 1. But an air traffic controller asked the flight crew if they could use runway 33 instead.
This is not an unusual request at this airport, which is incredibly busy and requires a delicate dance to handle the mix of arriving and departing aircraft in very complicated airspace around the D.C. area. There are many military and law enforcement helicopters always operating in the vicinity.