President Donald Trump says he has been briefed on the “terrible accident” after a passenger jet collided on Wednesday with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington DC.
There was no immediate official word on casualties, but all take-offs and landings from the airport were halted as helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in search of survivors.
In a statement late on Wednesday, Mr Trump thanked first responders for their “incredible work,” noting that he was “monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arise”.
American Airlines confirmed 60 passengers and four crew members were aboard the passenger jet.
There were multiple fatalities after the mid-air collision, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The person was not authorised to publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Officials who held a press conference at Reagan National Airport did not announce any deaths, but they all had a sombre tone.
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”.
Washington mayor Muriel Bowser would not say whether any bodies were recovered from the crash.
There are currently about 300 responders working on the rescue operation.
Washington Fire and EMS chief John A Donnelly said at the early Thursday news conference that conditions are “extremely rough for responders”, with cold weather and intense wind.
The Potomac River is about eight feet deep where the aircraft crashed after their collision.
“The water is dark. It is murky,” Mr Donnelly said.
Asked if there are any survivors, Mr Donnelly responded: “We don’t know yet. But we’re working.”
Inflatable rescue boats were launched into the nearby Potomac River from a point near the airport along the George Washington Parkway, just north of the airport.
Vice President JD Vance also encouraged followers on the social media platform X to “say a prayer for everyone involved”.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced the airport would be closed until at least 5am on Friday.
The agency said the mid-air crash occurred around 9pm local time 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.
“Tower did you see that?” another pilot is heard calling seconds after the apparent collision.
Investigators will try to piece together the aircrafts’ 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 was manufactured in 2004 and 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 asks the helicopter if it has the arriving plane in sight. The controller makes another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that the two aircraft collide.
The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.
The tower immediately began diverting other aircraft from Reagan.
Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Centre showed two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball.
Please say a prayer for everyone involved in the mid-air collision near Reagan airport this evening. We’re monitoring the situation, but for now let’s hope for the best.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) January 30, 2025
The crash is serving as a major test for two of the Trump administration’s newest agency leaders. Pete Hegseth, sworn in days ago as defence secretary, posted on social media that his department was “actively monitoring” the situation that involved an Army helicopter.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, just sworn in earlier this week, said in a social media post that he was “at the FAA HQ and closely monitoring the situation”.
Reagan National is located along the Potomac River, just southwest of the city. It is a popular choice because it is much closer than the larger Dulles International Airport, which is deeper in Virginia.
Depending on the runway being used, flights into Reagan can offer passengers spectacular views of landmarks like the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall and the US Capitol. It is a postcard-worthy welcome for tourists visiting the city.
The incident 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.
The last fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York.
Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, including 45 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants.
Another person on the ground also died, bringing the total death toll to 50.
An investigation determined that the captain accidentally caused the plane to stall as it approached the airport in Buffalo.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump questioned the tactics of the military helicopter and the air traffic controllers — both agencies that report to him as the president.
Writing that the “airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach for an extended period of time” on a “CLEAR NIGHT”, Mr Trump questioned “why didn’t the helicopter go up or down or turn”, and “why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane”.
“What a terrible night this has been. God Bless you all!” he added in a subsequent post.
