The skies over Washington DC were abruptly shattered by a jet spiraling out of control, its final moments being a chaotic blur as the aircraft descended toward the Potomac River leaving no survivors. Emergency services scrambled to reach the scene, but the tragedy unfolded too quickly to prevent. The last moments of the doomed flight are now being pieced together by investigators, who are searching the wreckage for answers.
On January 29, 2025, a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter collided mid-air at 9 pm just moments before landing at the Reagan National Airport. Unfortunately, President Trump confirmed on Thursday, January 30, 2025, that there were no survivors. The plane, American Eagle Flight No. 5342, a regional jetliner, was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members on a flight from Wichita, Kansas. A Defence Department official told CBS News that the US Army Sikorsky H-60 was carrying three soldiers. It is only known as of Thursday evening that 40 bodies have been recovered, where the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Chief John Donnelly stated that the situation was now being operated as a recovery option instead of a rescue mission.
What Happened?
The plane that crashed was part of B Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, based in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and was on a training flight. At the time of the incident, one air traffic control employee was in charge of overseeing the helicopters and a few planes from the Reagan National Airport tower, which is a job that two people typically do. This mishap will be looked into whether staffing played a role in the mid-air collision, a former agency chairman, Robert Sumwalt, said on “CBS Mornings” Friday. Sumwalt has also stated, “It’s not uncommon for air traffic controllers to combine positions based on the workload at the existing time. I think what’s important here is to let the NTSB sort through the details and figure out if this had any effect at all on the operations.”
What We Know About the Search Operation
As we know the efforts at the scene have switched to a recovery operation, but Chief Donalley has said, “It’s a highly complex operation, the conditions out there are extremely rough for the responders. It’s cold. They’re dealing with relatively windy conditions.” A CBS News senior transportation and national correspondent, Kris Van Cleave, reported that debris and human remains were washing up on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. He said the plane broke into multiple pieces and was sitting in 5-8 feet of water, while the helicopter was upside down it appeared mostly intact.
What Is Know About the Plane Crash Victims
Among the victims were prominent figure skaters from both Russia and the United States, including six individuals connected to the Skating Club of Boston. The flight carried skating coaches Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, athletes Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, and their mothers Jin Han and Christene Lane. They were on their way home from the National Development Camp, which was organized in connection with the recent US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita. Ryan O’Hara, a 29-year-old husband and father to a one-year-old son, was identified as the helicopter crew chief.
The First Serious Commercial Airline Disaster in Nearly 16 years
Another regional jet that was set to land at Regan narrowly avoided a helicopter just one day before the fatal collision. In 2018, a pilot used last-minute evasive maneuvers to escape an FAA landing on the same runway the Wichita flight was permitted to land on, one of four close calls between helicopters and planes. In February 2009, a Continental Airlines Airplane struck a house as it approached the Buffalo, New York airport, marking the last major commercial aviation accident in the United States. The tragedy claimed the lives of 49 people, although the last major American Airlines crash occurred in November 2001, which killed 265 people.
