A display screen seize captured from a video reveals a regional airplane collided in midair with a army helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. United States on Jan. 29, 2025.
Kennedy Heart Cam | Anadolu | Getty Photographs
The midair collision of a army helicopter and an American Airways regional jetliner on Wednesday evening brings to an finish a streak of economic air journey security that was unknown to earlier generations.
It’s the worst air catastrophe on U.S. soil in additional than 15 years.
American Eagle Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas was approaching Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport at an altitude of about 300 ft when a U.S. Military Black Hawk helicopter carrying three individuals collided with the industrial jetliner.
Sixty-four individuals — 60 passengers and 4 crew members — have been onboard the American flight. The flight was operated by American subsidiary provider PSA Airways. The airplane was a Bombardier CRJ700, a regional jet used for shorter routes.
Rescuers raced to recuperate passengers from the frigid waters of the Potomac River Wednesday evening, however native officers stated circumstances have been difficult resulting from excessive winds.
“Whereas we do not but know what number of on board have been misplaced, we all know there are fatalities,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who heads the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which incorporates aviation, stated on X.
NBC News4 in Washington reported rescue employees have been pulling our bodies from the river within the hours after the crash, citing two sources near the investigation.
The U.S. has gone years and not using a deadly industrial airline crash. The final lethal U.S. industrial passenger airline crash occurred in February 2009 when Continental Flight 3407 crashed right into a home because it was arriving in Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 individuals aboard and one individual on the bottom.
The crash of that turboprop plane prompted federal rules requiring extra relaxation and coaching for pilots.
The deadliest in latest reminiscence was American Airways Flight 587, an Airbus A300 that crashed in November 2001 shortly after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport for the Dominican Republic. All 260 individuals on the flight have been killed and 5 others on the bottom in Queens.
Airplane crashes have turn out to be extraordinarily uncommon, which security consultants typically chalk as much as overlapping and redundant security measures.
“It is extraordinarily secure. Even with this accident I am going to say it is extraordinarily secure,” stated Jeff Guzzetti, a retired air security investigator with the U.S. Nationwide Transportation Security Board and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The Nationwide Transportation Security Board will lead an investigation into Wednesday’s accident. It can embody the Federal Aviation Administration, American Airways, crew members’ labor unions and different events.
The NTSB will difficulty a preliminary report however a closing report that determines the trigger or causes of an airplane crash can take months if no more than a yr.
Investigators will study every thing from air visitors management recordings, coaching information, cockpit voice and knowledge recorders if and when the black containers are found, together with a bunch of different components.
The accident presents a problem to President Donald Trump days into his new time period. He has not but named a candidate to turn out to be a everlasting head for the Federal Aviation Administration after Biden-appointed Mike Whitaker, who stepped down on Jan. 20, when Trump’s time period started.
The FAA in 2023 laid out a plan designed to enhance security additional and remove all “shut calls” at airports.