Authorities have said there are likely no survivors from a tragic plane crash near Reagan National Airport outside D.C., late Wednesday night.
An American Airlines passenger jet with 64 people on board collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers, sending both aircraft plunging into the Potomac River.
John Donnelly, chief of D.C. Fire and EMS, told reporters Thursday: “We are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation” as they believed there are no survivors.
The airport resumed flight operations at 11am ET, but dozens of flights were delayed or canceled. Passengers were advised to check with their airlines for specific flight information.
The National Transportation Safety Board intends to have a preliminary report on the crash within 30 days, board member Todd Inman said during a briefing Thursday afternoon.
The NTSB has not yet recovered any of the flight recorders, Inman said, adding that they’re confident they’ll be able to do so.
“We do not know enough facts to be able to rule in or out human factor, mechanical factors,” Inman said.
President Trump delivered remarks from the White House earlier Thursday afternoon, briefly calling for national unity before attacking his Democratic predecessors.
He later signed a memorandum in keeping with an earlier one ordering the Transportation secretary and FAA administrator “to review all hiring decisions and changes to safety protocols” made during the previous four years.
It also directs them “to take such corrective action as necessary to achieve uncompromised aviation safety, including the replacement of any individuals who do not meet qualification standards,” Trump added in the memo.
“This review shall include a systematic assessment of any deterioration in hiring standards and aviation safety standards and protocols during the Biden Administration.”
Remnants of the two aircrafts have been discovered, including the fuselage of the American Airlines plane, which was found in three sections in “waist-deep” water, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said at a press briefing Thursday morning.
Frantic rescue operations along the frigid river began soon after the crash at around 9pm ET. Around 300 people were involved in those efforts, Donnelly said.
Speculation mounts on “absolute tragedy”
“Everything was standard in the lead-up to the crash,” Duffy said, while declining to speculate about where things went so tragically wrong.
Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth said in a video statement Thursday that the Army unit involved in the collision, the 12th Aviation Battalion, had been placed on a 48-hour operational pause while the incident is reviewed.
President Trump’s Army Sec. nominee Dan Driscoll called the incident an “absolute tragedy” during a hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services. He added: “I think we might need to look at where is an appropriate time to take training risk, and it may not be near an airport like Reagan.”
How the crash happened
American Eagle Flight 5342 traveling from Wichita was approaching DCA, sometimes described as having “America’s busiest runway.”
Visibility was good at the time of the crash, with winds blowing out of the northwest. An advisory for high winds had expired earlier in the evening.
Both the jet and the helicopter were following “standard flight patterns,” Duffy told reporters.
Hegseth noted that the helicopter had been manned by a “fairly experienced crew” that was appropriately equipped with night vision goggles.
Select helicopter routes near DCA
The U.S. Army UH-60 helicopter was on a training exercise out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, a Pentagon spokesperson said.
The helicopter was told to maintain visual separation with the plane — essentially, “see and avoid,” Axios aviation expert Alex Fitzpatrick notes. That’s not an unusual procedure, despite a Truth Social post from Trump questioning why the control tower hadn’t given more direct instructions.
It’s also not unusual to see Black Hawks flying low along the Potomac. This is some of America’s busiest airspace due to the presence of both military and commercial aircraft.
What remains unclear is why the military aircraft did not divert from its path and collided with the jet as it made its final descent.
“Do I think this was preventable? Absolutely,” Duffy said, without offering specifics.
Who was on board
U.S. Figure Skating confirmed “several” of its members were on board, as well as family members of some athletes returning from a development camp in Wichita. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Telegram that Russian figure skaters and other citizens were on board.
The plane was carrying 60 passengers and four crew, while the Black Hawk was carrying three soldiers.
Recovery operations continue
Recovery efforts are ongoing in and around the Potomac. Based on an initial count, around 30 people had yet to be recovered as of Thursday morning.
Dive teams scoured the site as helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in a methodical search for bodies, AP reports.
Deadly plane crashes in the U.S.
Fatal crashes of commercial aircraft in the U.S. have become a rarity.
The last was in 2009 near Buffalo, N.Y. All 49 passengers and crew above Colgan Air Flight 3407 were killed when the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane crashed into a house. A person on the ground also was killed.
Other than the Pentagon attack on 9/11, last night’s collision is the worst air tragedy in the D.C. area since the Air Florida Flight 90 crash on Jan. 13, 1982, which killed 78 when it hit the 14th Street Bridge and crashed into the Potomac.
