Emergency response teams scour the helicopter wreckage in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Photo / Getty Images
Emergency response teams scour the helicopter wreckage in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Photo / Getty Images
A US passenger jet with 64 people crashed into the Potomac River after colliding with a military helicopter.
A massive search and rescue operation is underway, but hopes of finding survivors are low.
CBS News reported that 18 bodies had been pulled from the water.
A United States passenger jet carrying 64 people crashed into Washington’s Potomac River after colliding midair with a military helicopter on a nighttime training exercise on Wednesday (US time), prompting a desperate search for survivors in the dark, near-freezing water.
The plane was approaching Ronald ReaganWashington National Airport about 9pm after flying from Wichita, Kansas, when the collision happened.
American Airlines, whose subsidiary PSA Airlines operated the Bombardier regional jet, said: “There were 60 passengers and four crew members on board the aircraft.”
US media, citing local sources, reported multiple bodies had been recovered, with CBS News saying at least 18, and NBC more than a dozen.
The Washington Post, citing a statement from US Figure Skating, said several athletes, coaches and officials were aboard the flight.
Russian figure skating couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were on board a US passenger jet that crashed in Washington on Wednesday, Russian news agencies reported.
Married couple Shishkova, 53, and Naumov, 56, won the world championship in pairs figure skating in 1994.
The Kremlin confirmed that Russian citizens were on board a plane that crashed in Washington, saying it had seen “sad reports” a champion skater couple were among them.
“We unfortunately see that these sad reports are being confirmed. Our other fellow citizens were there,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, expressing his “condolences to the families and friends” of the Russians on board.
8 MAR1995: EVGENIA SHISHKOVA AND VADIM NAUMOV OF RUSSIA PERFORM THEIR PAIRS FREE SKATE ROUTINE DURING THE WORLD FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS AT THE NATIONAL INDOOR ARENA IN BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND. Mandatory Credit: Chris Cole/ALLSPORT
A US Army official said the helicopter involved was a Black Hawk model carrying three soldiers, whose status is unknown. They had been on a “training flight”, a separate military spokesperson said.
However, a massive search and rescue operation was in progress, with divers visible in the glare of powerful lights as they plunged into the snow-lined Potomac to scour the wreckage of both aircraft.
Washington’s fire chief told a press briefing that emergency crews, totalling about 300 people, were working in “extremely rough” conditions and gave little indication they expected to find anyone alive.
The Washington Post quoted unnamed sources saying police had already started to pull out multiple bodies.
Witness Ari Schulman was driving home when he saw what he described as “a stream of sparks” overhead.
Emergency response units assess plane wreckage in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Photo / Getty Images
“Initially I saw the plane and it looked fine, normal. It was right about to head over land,” he told CNN.
“Three seconds later, and at that point, it was banked all the way to the right ... I could see the underside of it, it was lit up a very bright yellow, and there was a stream of sparks underneath it,” Schulman added. “It looked like a Roman candle.”
Trump criticises traffic control
President Donald Trump said in an official statement that he had been “fully briefed” and said of any victims, “may God bless their souls”.
But less than four hours after the disaster – and while other officials stressed they were waiting for investigations to unfold – he returned to social media to critique the air traffic control.
Around 9 p.m. on Wednesday evening, emergency personnel at Reagan National Airport initiated their response to a crash between a passenger aircraft, identified by the FAA as American Eagle flight 5342, and a Sikorsky helicopter. Mutual aid from neighboring agencies were called to…
“The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“Why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the grounding of all planes at Reagan National and the airport was not due to reopen until 11am (1600 GMT) Thursday.
American Airlines' chief executive issued a video statement in which he expressed “deep sorrow”, while US Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas called the collision “nothing short of a nightmare”.
Crowded airspace
Questions were expected to focus on how a passenger plane with modern collision-avoidance technology and nearby traffic controllers could collide with a military aircraft over the nation’s capital.
The airspace around Washington is often crowded, with planes coming in low over the city to land at Reagan Airport and helicopters – military, civilian and carrying senior politicians or officials – buzzing about day and night.
The same airport was the scene of a deadly crash in January 1982 when Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737, took off but quickly plummeted, hitting the 14th Street Bridge and crashing through the ice into the Potomac River. Seventy-eight people died.
A helicopter assists with search and rescue operations over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington Airport. Photo / Getty Images
Investigators concluded the pilot had failed to activate sufficient de-icing procedures.
The last major fatal US air accident was in 2009, when Continental Flight 3407 from New Jersey to Buffalo, New York crashed and killed all 49 people aboard.
