28 Confirmed Dead in Washington Plane Crash, No Survivors Expected – wna24

Washington Plane Crash: At least 28 bodies have been recovered from the icy waters of the Potomac River after an American Airlines jet, carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, crashed into an Army helicopter while approaching landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington. Officials said that rescue operations are still underway to locate any remaining casualties, though they do not expect to find any survivors. If confirmed, this would be the deadliest air disaster in the U.S. in nearly 24 years. The aircraft’s fuselage was found overturned in three sections in shallow waters, alongside the wreckage of the helicopter. 

No survivors are expected after a midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter, officials confirmed. DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly stated that authorities are confident they will recover the bodies of all 67 people believed to have died in the crash—64 from the passenger jet and three from the military helicopter. 

Donnelly stated that while the recovery effort will take time and may require additional equipment, officials remain committed to the operation. The next phase of the investigation will be led by the National Transportation Safety Board.

There were multiple fatalities, according to a person familiar with the matter, but the precise number of victims was unclear as rescue crews hunted for any survivors. Three soldiers were onboard the helicopter, an Army official said.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the Wednesday collision, but all takeoffs and landings from the airport were halted as dive teams scoured the site and helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in a methodical search for bodies.

Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and what appeared to be the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.

Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas said, “When one person dies it’s a tragedy, but when many, many, many people die it’s an unbearable sorrow.”  

President Donald Trump ‘Fully Briefed’

President Donald Trump said he had been “fully briefed on this terrible accident” and, referring to the passengers, added, “May God Bless their souls.”

Passengers on the 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.

“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” U.S. 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 U.S.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the midair crash occurred before 9 p.m. EST when a regional jet that had departed from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military helicopter on a training flight while on approach to an airport runway. It occurred 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.

Investigators will try to piece together the aircraft’s final moments before their collision, including contact with air traffic controllers as well as a loss of altitude by the passenger jet.

American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 400 feet and a speed of about 140 miles per hour when it suffered a rapid loss of 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 radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet 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. “I know that flight. I’ve flown it several times myself,” said Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas. He said he expected that many people in Wichita would know people who were on the flight.

“This is a very personal circumstance,” he said.

The collision occurred on a warm winter evening in Washington, with temperatures registering as high as 60 degrees Fahrenheit, following a stretch days earlier of intense cold and ice. On Wednesday, the Potomac River was 36 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Weather Service reported that wind gusts of up to 25 mph were possible in the area throughout the evening.

Some 300 first responders were on scene. Inflatable rescue boats were launched into the Potomac River from a point along the George Washington Parkway, just north of the airport, and first responders set up light towers from the shore to illuminate the area near the collision site. At least a half-dozen boats were scanning the water using searchlights.

“It’s a highly complex operation,” said D.C. fire chief John Donnelly. “The conditions out there are extremely rough for the responders.”

The U.S. Army described the helicopter as a UH-60 Blackhawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The helicopter was on a training flight. Military aircraft frequently conduct training flights in and around the congested and heavily restricted airspace around the nation’s capital for familiarization and continuity of government planning.

The collision recalled the crash of an Air Florida flight that plummeted into the Potomac on January 13, 1982, that killed 78 people. That crash was attributed to bad weather.