At least 28 bodies were pulled from the Potomac River in Washington DC after an American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington DC, officials said on Thursday.
Officials said they were still searching for other casualties but officials did not believe there were any other survivors, which would make it the deadliest US air crash in nearly 24 years.
“We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” said John Donnelly, the fire chief in the US capital. “We don’t believe there are any survivors.”
The wreckage of the plane was found upside down in three sections in waist-deep water. The wreckage of the helicopter was also found.
“This morning we all share a profound sense of grief,” District of Columbia mayor Muriel Bowser said.
“On final approach into Reagan National it collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach,” American Airlines chief executive Robert Isom said. “At this time we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the … aircraft.”
Three soldiers were onboard the helicopter during a training flight, an Army official said.
Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and what appeared to be the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.
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”.
“May God Bless their souls,” he added.
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 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.
Inflatable rescue boats had been 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”.
Officials announced the airport would reopen at 11am on Thursday.
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 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 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.
In audio from the air traffic control tower around the time of the crash, a controller is heard asking the helicopter: “PAT25 do you have the CRJ in sight,” in reference to the passenger aircraft.
“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.
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.
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.
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. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York.
