ARLINGTON: All 64 people aboard an American Airlines jet that collided with an Army helicopter were feared dead in what was likely to be the worst US aviation disaster in almost a quarter century, officials said Thursday.
At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the midair collision Wednesday night when the helicopter apparently flew in the path of the jet as it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, officials said.
Rescuers were still searching for any sign of the 60 passengers and four crew members, but they did not believe there were any survivors, which would make it the deadliest US air crash in nearly 24 years.
“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. “We don’t believe there are any survivors.”
The body of the plane was found upside-down in three sections in waist-deep water. The wreckage of the helicopter was also found. Donnelly said first responders on Thursday were searching an area of the Potomac River as far south as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, roughly 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) south of the airport.
There was no immediate word on the cause of the collision, but officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet coming from Wichita, Kansas, with US and Russian figure skaters and others aboard, was making a routine landing when the helicopter flew into its path.
“On final approach into Reagan National it collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said. “At this time, we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the ... aircraft.”
Three soldiers were aboard the helicopter during a training flight, an Army official said.
Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.
Investigators will try to piece together the aircraft’s final moments before the collision, including its contact with air traffic controllers as well as a loss of altitude by the passenger jet.
“I would just say that everyone who flies in American skies expects that we fly safely,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. “That when you depart an airport, you get to your destination. That didn’t happen last night, and I know that President Trump, his administration, the FAA, the DOT, we will not rest until we have answers for the families and for the flying public. You should be assured that when you fly, you’re safe.”
Reagan Airport was to reopen at 11 a.m. Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced. The FAA previously said it would be closed until 5 a.m. Friday.
Duffy, just sworn in earlier this week, was asked if he could reassure Americans that the United States still has the safest airspace in the world.
“Can I guarantee the American flying public that the United States has the most safe and secure airspace in the world? And the answer to that is, absolutely yes, we do,” he said.
Authorities have ‘early indicators’ of what went wrong
The night was clear, the plane and helicopter were both in standard flight patterns and there was standard communication between the aircraft and the tower, Duffy said.
“We have early indicators of what happened here,” Duffy said, though he declined to elaborate pending an investigation.
It is not unusual to have a military aircraft flying the river and an aircraft landing at the airport, he said. Asked if the plane was aware that there was a helicopter in the area, Duffy said the helicopter was aware that there was a plane in the area.
Asked about President Donald Trump suggesting in an overnight social media post that the collision could have been prevented, Duffy said: “From what I’ve seen so far, do I think this was preventable? Absolutely.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not appear at the Thursday morning press conference. He was expected to brief reporters at the Pentagon later.
Likely the deadliest plane crash since November 2001
If everyone aboard the plane was killed, it would be the deadliest US airline crash since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard.
The last major fatal crash involving a US commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, including 45 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants. Another person on the ground also died, bringing the total death toll to 50. An investigation determined that the captain accidentally caused the plane to stall as it approached the airport in Buffalo.
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 US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” US Figure Skating said in a statement.
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 US.
What happened
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 3 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 (122 meters) and a speed of about 140 mph (225 kph) when it rapidly lost altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from its radio transponder. The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet, manufactured in 2004, can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.
A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. 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. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
The plane’s transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet (732 meters) short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.
Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center showed two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball.
The US Army described the helicopter as a UH-60 Blackhawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Military aircraft frequently conduct such training flights in and around the nation’s capital.