From the article
One or both of the aircraft may be in the Potomac River, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.A search-and-rescue operation is underway on the river, officials said.
A source told NBC News that the plane, which was coming from Wichita, Kansas, was carrying 60 passengers and four crewmembers.
The helicopter involved in the crash was an Army Black Hawk, according to a defense official and an Army official. An Army official said preliminary indications are that three people were on board. May God Bless their souls', Trump says in statement
Rudy Chinchilla President Donald Trump said in a statement tonight that he has been briefed on the "terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport." "May God Bless their souls," he said in the statement posted to X by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump thanked first responders and said he would "provide more details as they arise." At this point the fate of those involved is unkown.
This sucks ! ! ! I am afraid no one survived this...
Prayers for the families!
From the article
• Fatalities have been confirmed and rescuers have not yet pulled any survivors from the water, a law enforcement source said. The source says the plane is in pieces in the water and the helicopter is in the water nearby.
• The plane, American Airlines Flight 5342 with 60 passengers and four crew members on board, had departed from Wichita, Kansas, according to the airline. Three soldiers were on board the helicopter, which was a training flight, officials say.
• All takeoffs and landings have been halted at Reagan National Airport.
Yes, just heard it has gone from a rescue to recovery mission, in this terrible event.
May God rest their souls
on their way back from an event in Wichita.
From The NY Times:
"Figure skaters from the United States and Russia were among the 64 people onboard the commercial jet that collided midair with an Army helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River on Wednesday night outside Washington.
U.S. Figure Skating, the American governing body for the sport, said that the skaters were returning from a training camp for top juvenile, intermediate, and novice skaters that follows the national figure skating championships, which were held in Wichita, Kan., over the weekend. Russian figure skaters — as well as other Russian citizens — were among those on the plane, said the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov.
“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” said the statement from Alex Schauffler, the communications director for U.S. Figure Skating. As of early Thursday morning, no fatalities had been confirmed."
and flew in and out of DCA just last week..
No idea how this could have happened. This morning when I watched the 7:30 press conference by Sean Duffy, something struck me as rather odd. He said the helicopter knew the whereabouts of the plane but there is no proof at this time that the plane had any knowledge of the helicopter. They were both in their normal paths. But obviously, they weren't supposed to be there at the same time.
I won't be surprised if the investigation reveals that this was a deliberate collision and not an accident. It's one thing to miss the runway due to poor weather or hit a bridge while landing due to poor visibility, but a mid air collision.. c'mon...
It's hard to imagine a professionally trained, army helicopter pilot not heeding the on board collision warning system. And even if that failed, which is highly unlikely, he/she would have a very good line of sight with the jet from the vector the chopper was on. He/she would also be getting collision avoidance instructions from the tower as well, one would think.
According to one "expert" being interviewed (sorry: I don't remember the name or what their qualifications are, but it seemed like an experienced pilot or other experienced flight professional - NOT a politician or department official or armchair pilot), current collision avoidance tech does not work well below ~1000 feet. This collision occurred at ~300-400 feet.
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I didn't hear the full explanation, so this is ME asking:
(1) increasing congestion at lower altitudes could produce constant / false warning signals, distracting crew from focusing on their approach and landing?
(2) at lower altitudes and approach speeds, the number of "blind" "react to a signal" collision avoidance measures are limited and might create ANOTHER hazard in the process? [Think about driving on the highway and someone swerves to avoid an obstruction over there on the right and rams into some other vehicles over there on the left.]
(3) I want to ask how maneuverable large jet aircraft are at lower approach speeds -- I do recall a "near miss" during a daytime, visual landing (probably at Logan / Boston but I don't remember if it was local news or national news): the jet was coming in and slowing down to land on the assigned runway but there was another aircraft taxiing across the runway (runways DO intersect and cross each other) up ahead. The pilot quickly "hit the gas" and flew back UP to avoid a possible collision. I don't recall if it was a "near miss" of 100 feet or less or a "What the fuck did you do that for? The other plane would have been clear by 1000 feet by the time you reached the intersection!!" As I recall, regardless of the 100 foot vs 1000 foot clearance, the taxiing pilot was found to be at fault and should not have been crossing the runway during that time anyway.
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NTSB investigations can be very thorough (error analysis, fault analysis, failure analysis, ... nitpick analysis) and take a long time. In his press conference, Trump basically assigned blame to "DEI," BEFORE any kind of analysis at all. Trump called for hiring only the best and brightest geniuses on the same day that his HHS nominee RF Kennedy is being interviewed by the Senate. To me, Kennedy is not qualified to head HHS but Trump sheep senators will approve Kennedy and, thus, politically designate him to be the "best, brightest genius" for the job. Put on your seat belts.
It's hard to imagine a professionally trained, army helicopter pilot not heeding the on board collision warning system. And even if that failed, which is highly unlikely, he/she would have a very good line of sight with the jet from the vector the chopper was on. He/she would also be getting collision avoidance instructions from the tower as well, one would think.
Especially involving a military aircraft. The chopper was verbally informed of the presence of the plane and told to pass behind it. But he failed to do that.
As for a "normal path," I just saw a graphic of the flight path or the chopper and it looked erratic.
I think it's never a good time for conspiracy theories, and but at the same time never too early or too late to ask tough questions - especially to point out something that doesn't sit well with common sense.
In you post above you did not ask any questions, you did however, make several very irresponsible statements.
you didn't even have the decency to express any sort of condolences to those lost.
We as a collective should ask tough questions.... The question being (since you don't seem particularly smart) was this truly an accident or there is something more to it..
I know that the general tone of this forum is a mix of strongly held opinions mixed with a healthy dose of ad hominem insults, but could we agree, at least just in this thread, to avoid the name calling out of respect for the dead?
As far as the crash goes, I do think any suggestion that this was intentional falls in the category of conspiracy theories. What I believe we will find as the cause is a mix of system failure and human error.
Well.. I am not implying anything at this point.. I am not suggesting affirmatively that this WAS anything intentional. I am suggesting people use common sense and don't be afraid to ask tough questions..
BTW, what I am truly disgusted about is Trump just blamed this on DEI hiring and Biden / Obama policies. I saw it with my eyes and heard it with my two ears.
From the link
“Audio from LiveATC.net, a respected source for in-flight recording, captured the final communications between the three crew members of the helicopter – call sign PAT25 – before it collided with the plane. 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 crash was witnessed by another plane, whose crew called in to the control tower, saying: “Tower, did you see that?”
One of the air traffic controllers can be heard saying: “Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three.” Another controller then said: “Both the helicopter and the plane crashed in the river … I just saw a fireball and then it was just gone. I haven’t seen anything since they hit the river. But it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit.”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/29/aircraft-crash-ronald-reagan-airport-virginia
Here is link with a better graphic
The helicopter was asked if they had the jet in sight and they responded that they did. Then atc directed them to fly behind the jet.
I’m betting the helicopter pilots mistook which aircraft was which and continued on its path believing they were ok. The jet was moving perpendicular at 140 miles an hour and from this video it looks like the helicopter simply flew into the side of the aircraft accidentally.
http://youtu.be/mxMYeZmAxvo?si=Ttwqa3qWg9p05aVj
I will be shocked if this is anything other than just a horrific accident.
This is the second post of Nicky’s in this thread where I’ve hit the “Like” button!
and a pilot's license myself, here is my theory . . . .
We know the helicopter was a training flight, so the Pilot being trained may have been working under a "hood" under IFR conditions. (The hood comes down over your face at an angle and allows you to see the instruments in front of you, but you cannot see out the windshield of side windows of the cockpit.) When the tower asked the helicopter pilot if he could "see" the CJ7, and the pilot said, "Yes," he could have been referring to "seeing" the plane on the radar, so then the possibilities include that as a "trainee" he misjudged the distance from himself to the radar "blip", or that he mistook a different radar blip as the plane the tower was referring to. Unlike the radar received by the ATC's in the tower, radar on smaller individual aircraft does not display aircraft type or tail number of flight number automatically, so the trainee pilot may have been guessing which aircraft he was instructed to look out for. With this is what happened, then the PIC/Instructor was negligent in not confirming visually which aircraft they were warned about, but since there were three on the helicopter, he may have been engaged with the third person and not paying attention to what the trainee was doing. More negligence on the part of the instructor.
As they did climate change and everything else under their watch.Lets see who he is gonna blame this on..China ? Because, although he is charge and it happened under his watch he will put it on someone else..anyone else.
As they did climate change and everything else under their watch.Lets see who he is gonna blame this on..China ? Because, although he is charge and it happened under his watch he will put it on someone else..anyone else.