There are no survivors after a commercial flight and a military helicopter, carrying a total of 67 people, collided in midair Wednesday night as the jet was about to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., authorities said Thursday.
At least 28 bodies have been pulled from the icy water of the Potomac River bordering the airport. These include the bodies of the three Army soldiers who were in the helicopter, officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
“Unfortunately we weren’t able to rescue anyone but we are in the recovery mode,” Jack Potter, the president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, said at a late morning press conference Thursday.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the remains of both aircraft have been recovered. The passenger jet was found inverted and located in three different sections “in about waist-deep water.”
The flight ― operated by PSA Airlines for American Airlines ― was en route from Wichita, Kansas, and was scheduled to land in the nation’s capital just before 9 p.m. local time. American Airlines confirmed there were 60 passengers and four crew members on board.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the passenger jet collided with the helicopter “on an otherwise normal approach.”
“At this time we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the PSA aircraft,” Isom said Thursday.
Video from the moment of the crash, taken from the nearby Kennedy Center, appears to show two aircraft, one large and one small, flying near each other before a bright fireball lights up the sky. An object appears to fall into the Potomac below.
Staffing in the air traffic control tower was “not normal” at the time of the collision, and one air traffic controller was working two positions at the time of the crash, according to an FAA report obtained by the AP on Thursday.
The AP also obtained audio of air traffic controllers warning the helicopter that a plane was incoming just 30 seconds before the crash.
“PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ,” the controller said in a radio call, using identifiers for the helicopter and the jet respectively. The two aircraft collided moments later.
The Army confirmed that a Black Hawk helicopter was involved in the crash. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the helicopter was operating out of Fort Belvoir in Virginia and was on “an annual proficiency training flight” at the time.
“It was a fairly experienced crew that was doing a required annual night evaluation,” Hegseth added. “They did have night-vision goggles.”
Fox News previously reported no senior officials were aboard the helicopter.
Hegseth earlier said the Army and the Pentagon have launched an investigation into the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board is also probing the accident.
“We are going to get to the bottom of this investigation, not in three years, not in four years, but as quickly as possible,” Duffy said at an afternoon news conference.
The NTSB said it expects to release a preliminary report on the crash in 30 days and a final report once investigators’ full work is complete.
“We’re here to assure the American people that we are going to leave no stone unturned in this investigation,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at an afternoon news conference that outlined the agency’s investigation process.
Homendy stressed that the board would not speculate on the cause of the crash.
The flight data recorders had not been recovered from the water as of Thursday afternoon, “which is not unusual.” Information that has been gathered also needs time for review and verification, she said.
Jim Brauchle, an attorney and former U.S. Air Force navigator, told HuffPost he will be looking out for the “human factors analysis” from the NTSB probe.
“Based on the facts that we have now, it appears that it is a human error, and it could be a visual or perception error,” Brauchle said.
President Donald Trump, speaking at an afternoon press conference, speculated that the past administration’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, in hiring could be to blame for the crash.
“We do not know what led to this crash but we have some very strong opinions,” he said from the White House briefing room.
Trump said the helicopter could have made “a million different maneuvers” before colliding with the plane, but “for some reason it kept going.”
“All of this is going to be studied, but it just seems to me … some really bad things happened, and some things happened that shouldn’t have happened,” he said.
Asked by a reporter about his claim that DEI could be linked, he responded, “It just could have been.”
“You have to go by brain power, psychological quality,” Trump said of selecting qualified federal employees. “I can’t imagine people with 20/20 vision not seeing what’s happening up there.”
Vice President JD Vance, in separate remarks from the press briefing, also hammered the need for putting diversity in hiring practices on the back burner.
Air traffic control needs to have people who are “actually competent to do the job,” he said.
Asked about Trump’s speculation that the crash is related to DEI, Homendy said that examining the people involved is a standard part of the NTSB’s practice.
“We look at the human, the machine and the environment. So we will look at all of the humans that were involved in this accident,” she said.
Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation, told the AP that the crew flying the Army Blackhawk helicopter was “very experienced.”
“Both pilots had flown this specific route before, at night. This wasn’t something new to either one of them,” Koziol said. “Even the crew chief in the back has been in the unit for a very long time, very familiar with the area, very familiar with the routing structure.”
Brauchle explained that it is possible that the helicopter could have mistaken an entirely different aircraft for the passenger jet.
“It’s very easy to pick up on the wrong thing,” Brauchle told HuffPost. “And you may see a flashing light or a tower and say, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s an aircraft.’ And you start focusing on that, and then you miss the actual airplane.”
The president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union representing aviation safety professionals, stressed Thursday that it “would be premature to speculate on the root cause of this accident.”
“America’s highly trained and skilled air traffic controllers all do amazing work every day keeping the nation’s passengers and cargo moving safely and efficiently to their destinations,” said NATCA President Nick Daniels in a statement. “This job is more than a profession; it’s a responsibility we hold deeply, and when tragedy strikes, it stays with us.”
U.S. Figure Skating said several members of its community, including “athletes, coaches, and family members” were aboard the passenger jet.
“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” the organization said in a statement to HuffPost.
Former world champions and ice skating coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov of Russia were said to be on that flight, Reuters reported, citing Russian state media.
Trump, earlier in the morning, said he was monitoring the situation and would provide more details as they arose.
“I have been fully briefed on the terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport,” the president said in a statement. “May God Bless their souls. Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the crash was “a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented.”
Duffy said the information he’s seen so far appears to confirm Trump’s assessment that the accident could have been avoided.
“Do I think this was preventable? Absolutely,” Duffy said.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said he had flown the direct route between Wichita and the Capitol “many times” since it launched around a year ago.
“It is certainly true that in Kansas and in Wichita in particular, we’re going to know people who were on this flight,” Moran said during a news conference. “So this is a very personal circumstance.”