Jan. 29, 2026:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Families and emergency responders are marking the one-year anniversary of the deadly plane collision over the Potomac River. American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a Black Hawk helicopter, killing all 67 people on board both aircraft. The plane crash on Jan. 29, 2025, was the deadliest on U.S. soil since a 2001 crash that killed 265 people. Emergency crews faced challenging conditions as they searched for victims, their personal belongings and pieces of the wreckage. Emergency response officials said the priority was recovering bodies and returning them to families. The recovery of personal items provided some closure for grieving families.
Jan. 28, 2026:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Transportation Safety Board says the placement of a helicopter route so close to Reagan National Airport’s secondary runway was a key factor in causing a midair aircraft collision that killed 67 people near Washington, D.C., a year ago. The NTSB said Tuesday (Jan. 27, 2026) that air traffic controllers’ over reliance on asking pilots to avoid other aircraft also contributed to an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter colliding a year ago. The Federal Aviation Administration has taken steps to ensure helicopters and planes no longer share the same crowded airspace around the nation’s capital. An NTSB investigator says air traffic control had a big workload around the time of the crash.
Jan. 27, 2026, update:
WASHINGTON (AP) — National Transportation Safety Board members were deeply troubled Tuesday (Jan. 27, 2026) over years of ignored warnings about helicopter traffic dangers and other problems, long before last year’s midair collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk, which killed 67 people near Washington, D.C.
The board heard hours of testimony from investigators who outlined their findings in the collision and subsequent crash near Reagan National Airport a year ago. Key themes emerged, including “overwhelmed” air traffic control, a failure to alert the jet’s pilot about the other aircraft and a history of missed opportunities to reroute helicopter traffic.
“I’m sorry for you, as these pages of these reports are written in your family members’ blood,” board member Todd Inman told the audience. “I’m sorry that we have to be here.”
Family members listened intently during the hearing. Some were escorted out, including two in tears, as an animation of the flights was displayed on video screens. Others wore black shirts bearing the names of crash victims.
“The negligence of not fixing things that needed to be fixed killed my brother and 66 other people. So I’m not very happy,” Kristen Miller-Zahn, who watched from the front row, said during a break.
The NTSB’s job at this point is to determine the biggest factors in the crash and make recommendations. Victims’ families say they hope there’s meaningful change.
Systemic problems caused the crash
Before hearing from investigators, Inman said “systemic issues across multiple organizations,” not an error by any individual, caused the tragedy.
Everyone aboard the jet, flying from Wichita, Kansas, and the helicopter died when the two aircraft collided and plummeted into the icy Potomac River. It was the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001, and the victims included 28 members of the figure skating community.
The Federal Aviation Administration last week made a permanent change to ensure helicopters and planes no longer share the same airspace around the airport.
Missed warning signs
NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said she couldn’t believe the FAA didn’t realize the helicopter route in use during the crash didn’t provide adequate separation from planes landing on Reagan’s secondary runway. She noted that the FAA had refused to add detailed information about helicopter routes to pilots’ charts so they could better understand the risks.
“We know over time concerns were raised repeatedly, went unheard, squashed — however you want to put it — stuck in red tape and bureaucracy of a very large organization,” Homendy said. “Repeated recommendations over the years.”
NTSB investigators said the Army and FAA weren’t sharing all safety data with each other before the crash, and that Army helicopter pilots often weren’t even aware when they were involved in a near-miss around Reagan.
Overwhelmed controller
NTSB human performance investigator Katherine Wilson said an air traffic controller felt a “little overwhelmed” when traffic volume increased to 10 aircraft about 10 to 15 minutes before the collision, but then “felt the volume was manageable when one or two helicopters left the airspace.”
Yet about 90 seconds before the collision, Wilson said, “traffic volume increased to a maximum of 12 aircraft consisting of seven airplanes and five helicopters. Radio communication showed that the local controller was shifting focus between airborne, ground and transiting aircraft.”
The workload “reduced his situational awareness,” Wilson said.
Details were difficult for families to hear
NTSB investigators showed a video animation to demonstrate how difficult it would have been for the pilots in both aircraft to spot the other amid the lights of Washington. The animation also showed how the windshields of both aircraft and the helicopter crew’s night vision goggles restricted views.
Ahead of the hearing, Rachel Feres, who lost her cousin Peter Livingston and his wife and two young daughters, said she was hoping for “clarity and urgency” from the NTSB process.
No one else, she said, should have to “wake up to hear that an entire branch of their family tree is gone, or their wife is gone or the child is gone.”
The government will have to make changes
Whether that happens depends on how Congress, the Army and the Trump administration respond after the hearing. A pending bill would require all aircraft to have advanced locator systems to help avoid collisions.
Even before Tuesday, the NTSB had already spelled out many key factors that contributed to the crash. Investigators said controllers in the Reagan tower had been overly reliant on asking pilots to spot other aircraft and maintain visual separation.
The night of the crash, the controller approved the Black Hawk’s request to do that twice. However, the investigation has shown that the helicopter pilots likely never spotted the American Airlines plane as the jet circled to land on the little-used secondary runway.
In a statement, the FAA said it has reduced hourly plane arrivals at Reagan airport from 36 to 30 and increased staff. The agency said it has 22 certified controllers in the tower and eight more in training.
“We will diligently consider any additional recommendations” from the NTSB, the FAA said.
Several high-profile crashes and close calls followed the D.C. collision, alarming the flying public. But NTSB statistics show that the total number of crashes last year was the lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, with 1,405 nationwide.
Jan. 27, 2026:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A public hearing opened Tuesday (Jan. 27, 2026) to make clear what factors played the biggest role in a midair collision that killed 67 people a year ago near Washington, D.C., and the National Transportation Safety Board will recommend what should be done to prevent similar tragedies.
“It will not be an easy day,” board member Todd Inman said. “There is no singular person to blame for this. These were systemic issues across multiple organizations.”
Everyone aboard an American Airlines jet flying from Wichita, Kansas, and an Army Black Hawk helicopter died when the two aircraft ran into each other and plummeted into the icy Potomac River on Jan. 29, 2025. It was the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001.
The Federal Aviation Administration made several changes shortly after the crash to ensure helicopters and planes no longer share the same crowded airspace around the nation’s capital, and last week made those changes permanent. The NTSB will recommend additional action, and families of the victims have said they hope that leads to meaningful changes.
Early in the hearing, NTSB investigators showed a video animation to demonstrate how difficult it would have been for the pilots in both aircraft to spot the other amid the lights of Washington. The animation also showed how the plane’s and the helicopter’s windshields, and the helicopter crew’s night vision goggles, restricted views.
Lead investigator Brice Banning said an air-traffic controller was handling six airplanes and five helicopters at the time.
Some people were escorted from the room, including two in tears, as an animation of the flights began. Several entered the auditorium wearing black shirts bearing the names of crash victims.
“I hope that we see a clear path through the recommendations they offer to ensure that this never happens again,” Rachel Feres, who lost her cousin Peter Livingston and his wife and two young daughters in the crash, said ahead of the hearing. “That nobody else has to wake up to hear that an entire branch of their family tree is gone, or their wife is gone or the child is gone. That’s what I hope coming out of this. I hope we have clarity and urgency.”
Whether that happens depends on how Congress, the Army and the Trump administration respond after the hearing. Victims’ families say they will keep the pressure on officials to act.
Young Alydia and Everly Livingston were among 28 members of the figure skating community who died in the crash. Many of them had been in Wichita for a national skating competition and development camp.
The NTSB has already spelled out many of the key factors that contributed to the crash and detailed what happened that night. That includes a poorly designed helicopter route past Ronald Reagan National Airport, the fact that the Black Hawk was flying 78 feet (23.7 meters) higher than it should have been, the warnings that the FAA ignored in the years beforehand, and the Army’s move to turn off a key system that would have broadcast the helicopter’s location more clearly.
Several other high-profile crashes and close calls followed the D.C. collision, alarming the flying public. But NTSB statistics show that the total number of crashes last year was the lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, with 1,405 nationwide.
Dec. 18, 2025:
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The U.S. government admitted Wednesday (Dec. 17, 2025) that the actions of an air traffic controller and Army helicopter pilot played a role in causing a collision last January between an airliner and a Black Hawk near the nation’s capital, killing 67 people.
It was the deadliest plane crash on American soil in more than two decades.
The official response to the first lawsuit filed by one of the victims’ families said that the government is liable in the crash partly because the air traffic controller violated visual separation procedures that night. Plus, the filing said, the Army helicopter pilots’ “failure to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid” the airline jet makes the government liable.
But the filing suggested that others, including the pilots of the jet and the airlines, may also have played a role. The lawsuit also blamed American Airlines and its regional partner, PSA Airlines, for roles in the crash, but those airlines have filed motions to dismiss.
And the government denied that any air traffic controllers or officials at the Federal Aviation Administration or Army were negligent.
At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter collided with the American Airlines regional jet while it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport in northern Virginia, just across the river from Washington, D.C., officials said. The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members, and three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.
Attorney says loss of life was needless
Robert Clifford, one of the attorneys for the family of victim Casey Crafton, said the government admitted “the Army’s responsibility for the needless loss of life” and the FAA’s failure to follow air traffic control procedures while “rightfully” acknowledging others –- American Airlines and PSA Airlines -– also contributed to the deaths.
The families of the victims “remain deeply saddened and anchored in the grief caused by this tragic loss of life,” he said.
The government’s lawyers said in the filing that “the United States admits that it owed a duty of care to plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident.”
An American spokesman declined to comment on the filing, but in the airline’s motion to dismiss, American said “plaintiffs’ proper legal recourse is not against American. It is against the United States government … The Court should therefore dismiss American from this lawsuit.” The airline said that since the crash it has focused on supporting the families of the victims.
The lawsuit had accused the airlines of not doing enough to mitigate the risks of flying so close to helicopters around Washington, D.C., and not adequately training their pilots to handle it.
Investigators highlight contributing factors
The National Transportation Safety Board will release its report on the cause of the crash early next year, but investigators have already highlighted a number of factors that contributed, including the helicopter flying 78 feet higher (24 meters) than the 200-foot (61-meter) limit on a route that allowed only scant separation between planes landing on Reagan’s secondary runway and helicopters passing below. Plus, the NTSB said, the FAA failed to recognize the dangers around the busy airport even after 85 near misses in the three years before the crash.
The government admitted in its filing that the United States “was on notice of certain near-miss events between its Army-operated Black Hawk helicopters and aircraft traffic transiting in and around helicopter routes 1 and 4” around Washington.
Before the collision, the controller twice asked the helicopter pilots whether they had the jet in sight, and the pilots said they did and asked for visual separation approval so they could use their own eyes to maintain distance. FAA officials acknowledged at the NTSB’s investigative hearings that the controllers at Reagan had become overly reliant on the use of visual separation. That’s a practice the agency has since ended.
Witnesses told the NTSB that they have serious questions about how well the helicopter crew could spot the plane while wearing night vision goggles and whether the pilots were even looking in the right spot.
Investigators have said the helicopter pilots might not have realized how high they were because the barometric altimeter they were relying on was reading 80 to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) lower than the altitude registered by the flight data recorder.
Swift admission
The crash victims included a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches who had just attended a competition in Wichita, Kansas, and four union steamfitters from the Washington area.
Retired pilot Richard J. Levy, an aviation litigation expert witness, said the government’s admission of some responsibility less than a year after the crash is unusual, especially considering the amount of money that could be involved in the case.
“They would not have done that if there was a doubt in their mind about anything the controller did or that the Army did,” said Levy.
July 30, 2025:
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Investigators have found that a helicopter involved in a deadly crash with a passenger plane over Washington was flying above its height limit. The helicopter’s altitude-measuring instrument was also inaccurate. These findings were revealed during the first day of National Transportation Safety Board hearings. The crash, which occurred in January 2025, killed 67 people. The board is examining how the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army may have contributed to the incident. The hearings will continue for three days, focusing on military helicopter routes, collision avoidance technology, and air traffic controller training at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Story
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Investigators probing the January midair collision of a passenger plane and an Army helicopter over Washington that killed 67 people found the chopper was flying higher than the it should have been and the altitude readings were inaccurate.
The details came out of the first day of National Transportation Safety Board hearings in Washington, where investigators aim to uncover insights into what caused the crash between the American Airlines plane from Wichita, Kansas, and the Black Hawk helicopter over Ronald Reagan National Airport.
The board opened the three days of hearings by showing an animation and playing audio and video from the night of the collision, as well as questioning witnesses and investigators about how the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army may have contributed to nation’s deadliest plane crash since November 2001.
It’s likely too early for the board to identify what caused the crash.
The January 2025 incident was the first in a string of crashes and near misses this year that have alarmed officials and the traveling public, despite statistics that still show flying remains the safest form of transportation.
Animation, altimeter discrepancy
The hearing opened Wednesday with a video animation showing where the helicopter and airliner were leading up to the collision. It showed how the helicopter flew above the 200 feet (61 meters) altitude limit on the helicopter route along the Potomac River before colliding with the plane.
Investigators said Wednesday the flight data recorder showed the helicopter was actually 80 feet to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) higher than the barometric altimeter the pilots relied upon showed they were flying. So the NTSB conducted tests on three other helicopters from the same unit in a flight over the same area and found similar discrepancies in their altimeters.
Dan Cooper with Sikorsky helicopters said that when the Black Hawk helicopter involved in the crash was designed in the 1970s, it used a style of altimeter that was common at the time. Newer helicopters have air data computers that didn’t exist back then that help provide more accurate altitude readings.
Chief Warrant Officer Kylene Lewis told the board that she wouldn’t find an 80 to 100 foot discrepancy between the different altimeters on a helicopter alarming because at lower altitudes she would be relying more on the radar altimeter than the barometric altimeter. Below 500 feet (152 meters) , Lewis said she would be checking both instruments and cross referencing them.
She said as long as an altimeter registers an altitude within 70 feet of the published altitude before takeoff the altimeter is considered accurate under the checklists.
But previously, NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy highlighted that the published helicopter routes around Washington D.C. would allow planes and helicopters to routinely come within 75 feet of each other during landing.
Army officials said Wednesday that the flight manual for these older Black Hawks doesn’t highlight the discrepancies in altimeters that has been documented previously, but typical flight separations are at least 500 feet around airports.
Previously disclosed air traffic control audio had the helicopter pilot telling the controller twice that they saw the airplane and would avoid it. The animation ended with surveillance video showing the helicopter colliding with the plane in a fiery crash.
Investigations have already shown the FAA failed to recognize a troubling history of 85 near misses around Reagan airport in the years before the collision, and that the Army’s helicopters routinely flew around the nation’s capitol with a key piece of locating equipment, known as ADS-B Out, turned off.
Aviation attorney Bob Clifford, who is working to file one of the first lawsuits against the government next month, said he hopes NTSB will look beyond the immediate factors that caused this crash to highlight the bigger ongoing concerns in the crowded Washington airspace.
Proposed changes
Even though the final NTSB report won’t be released until sometime next year, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz isn’t waiting to propose changes. He introduced legislation Tuesday that would require all aircraft operators to use both forms of ADS-B, or Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, the technology to broadcast aircraft location data to other planes and air traffic controllers. Most aircraft today are equipped with ADS-B Out equipment but the airlines would have to add the more comprehensive ADS-B In technology to their planes.
“There cannot be a double standard in aviation safety,” Cruz said. “We should not tolerate special exceptions for military training flights, operating in congested air space.”
The legislation would revoke an exemption on ADS-B transmission requests for Department of Defense aircrafts. It also would require the FAA to evaluate helicopter routes near airports and require the Army Inspector General to review the Army’s aviation safety practices.
Homendy said her agency has been recommending that move for decades after several other crashes.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that while he’d like to discuss “a few tweaks,” the legislation is “the right approach.” He also suggested that the previous administration “was asleep at the wheel” amid dozens of near-misses in the airspace around Washington’s airspace.
‘Fact-finding proceeding’
Homendy said the hearings over the next few days will be a “fact-finding proceeding.” The NTSB will also post thousands of pages of evidence from the crash investigation online.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said that he expects “we’re going to have some very uncomfortable conversations over the next two and a half days” but that “they need to be had in the clear light of day – and simply put the best interest of the traveling public ahead of any of our personal interests, perhaps.”
The hearings in Washington involve NTSB board members, investigators and witnesses for organizations involved in the crash. Panels will focus on military helicopter routes in the Washington area, collision avoidance technology and training for air traffic controllers at Ronald Reagan National Airport, among other subjects.
Federal officials have also raised concerns over the nation’s outdated and understaffed air traffic control system. During January’s mid-air crash above Washington, one controller was handing both commercial airline and helicopter traffic at the busy airport.
Duffy has announced a multi-billion-dollar plan to overhaul the system controllers use that relies on old technology like floppy disks.
May 15, 2025:
UNDATED (AP)- A hotline between military and civilian air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C., that hasn’t worked for more than three years may have contributed to another near miss shortly after the U.S. Army resumed flying helicopters in the area for the first time since January’s deadly midair collision between a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter, Sen. Ted Cruz said at a hearing Wednesday (May 14, 2025).
The Federal Aviation Administration official in charge of air traffic controllers, Frank McIntosh, confirmed the agency didn’t even know the hotline hadn’t been working since March 2022 until after the latest near miss. He said civilian controllers still have other means of communicating with their military counterparts through landlines. Still, the FAA insists the hotline be fixed before helicopter flights resume around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The Army said in a statement Wednesday that is it “working with the FAA to resolve the direct communications line between the Pentagon pad tower and the DCA tower and determine what repairs are required to restore services.” DCA is the code for Reagan airport.
It said the Army “continues to restrict flights to the Pentagon pad to only mission essential operations until the line is repaired or improved communication procedures are implemented and accepted by the FAA.”
The FAA said in a statement that the dedicated direct access line between air traffic controllers at Reagan and the Pentagon’s Army heliport hasn’t worked since 2022 because of the construction of a new tower at the Pentagon. But the FAA said “the two facilities continue to communicate via telephone for coordination.”
“The developments at DCA in its airspace are extremely concerning,” Cruz said. “This committee remains laser-focused on monitoring a safe return to operations at DCA and making sure all users in the airspace are operating responsibly.”
The Army suspended all helicopter flights around Reagan airport after the latest near miss, but McIntosh said the FAA was close to ordering the Army to stop flying because of the safety concerns before it did so voluntarily.
“We did have discussions if that was an option that we wanted to pursue,” McIntosh told the Senate Commerce Committee at the hearing.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB and FAA accident investigator, said “the fact that they were unaware that this connection was not working for three years is troublesome.” But he is not entirely clear on the purpose of the hotline when controllers had other ways to communicate.
But Guzzetti thinks the Army needs to be more forthcoming about what it is doing to ensure the airspace around Washington remains safe. Since the crash, the Army has at times refused to provide information that Congress has asked for, and officials didn’t answer all the questions at a previous hearing.
“The DCA airspace is under the white hot spotlight. So the Army’s going to have to be more transparent and more assertive in their dealings with this problem,” Guzzetti said.
According to a U.S. official, one course of action under consideration now is to have the Army give 24 hours notice of any flights around National Airport. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made and discussions are ongoing.
January’s crash between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter killed 67 people — making it the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001. The National Transportation Safety Board has said there were an alarming 85 near misses around Reagan in the three years before the crash that should have prompted action.
Since the crash, the FAA has tried to ensure that military helicopters never share the same airspace as planes, but controllers had to order two planes to abort their landings on May 1 because of an Army helicopter circling near the Pentagon.
“After the deadly crash near Reagan National Airport, FAA closed the helicopter route involved, but a lack of coordination between FAA and the Department of Defense has continued to put the flying public at risk,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth said.
McIntosh said the helicopter should never have entered the airspace around Reagan airport without permission from an air traffic controller.
“That did not occur,” he said. “My question — and I think the larger question is — is why did that not occur? Without compliance to our procedures and our policies, this is where safety drift starts to happen.”
The NTSB is investigating what happened.
In addition to that incident, a commercial flight taking off from Reagan airport had to take evasive action after coming within a few hundred feet of four military jets heading to a flyover at Arlington National Cemetery. McIntosh blamed that incident on a miscommunication between FAA air traffic controllers at a regional facility and the tower at Reagan, which he said had been addressed.
February 4, 2025, update:
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The remains of all 67 victims of last week’s midair collision of an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter near the nation’s capital have been recovered, authorities said Tuesday (Feb. 4, 2025).
The chief medical examiner is still trying to positively identify one set of remains, officials said in a news release.
“Our hearts are with the victims’ families as they navigate this tragic loss,” they said in a joint release from the city and federal agencies involved, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Navy dive teams and Washington, D.C., police and fire crews.
The news came as crews worked to try to recover the cockpit and other parts of the jetliner from the Potomac River. Officials said their work might depend upon the wind and tidal conditions in the river, where the aircraft crashed last Wednesday night after colliding as the plane was about to land at nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport, killing everyone on board the two aircraft were killed.
Throughout the day, crews could be seen lifting large pieces of the plane from the river. The National Transportation Safety Board said it didn’t plan to provide further updates from the scene.
Authorities said early on in the effort that they had expected to recover the remains of everyone who died. They are focusing first on the jet and hope to recover the Black Hawk helicopter later this week.
Col. Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said salvage crews on Monday were able to pull one of the two jet engines from the river, along with large pieces of the plane’s exterior. They were also working to recover a wing of the plane, which had flown out of Wichita, Kansas.
Sixty passengers and four crew were on the American Airlines flight, including figure skaters returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
The Black Hawk was on a training mission. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were aboard.
Federal investigators are trying to piece together the events that led to the collision. Full investigations typically take a year or more, but investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.
February 4, 2025, update:
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Crews worked Tuesday (Feb. 4, 2025) to try to recover the plane’s cockpit and the rest of the remains of the 67 people who died in last week’s midair collision between a passenger jet and Army helicopter near the nation’s capital.
They said their work might depend upon the wind and tidal conditions in the Potomac River, where the aircraft crashed last Wednesday night after colliding as the American Airlines flight was about to land at nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport. All 67 people on both aircraft were killed.
By midday, they were working to raise another large piece of the plane. The National Transportation Safety Board said it didn’t plan to provide further updates from the scene.
Authorities have recovered and identified the remains of 55 of the 67 people and have said they are confident they will find all of the victims. They are focusing first on the jet and hope to recover the Black Hawk helicopter later this week.
Col. Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said salvage crews on Monday were able to pull one of the two jet engines from the river, along with large pieces of the plane’s exterior. They were also working to recover a wing of the plane, which had flown out of Wichita, Kansas.
Sixty passengers and four crew were on the American Airlines flight, including figure skaters returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
The Black Hawk helicopter was on a training mission. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were aboard.
Federal investigators are trying to piece together the events that led to the collision. Full investigations typically take a year or more, but investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.
February 4, 2025:
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Salvage crews have recovered an engine and large pieces of fuselage and are working to retrieve a wing from the wreckage of a commercial airliner involved in last week’s midair collision near Washington’s Reagan National Airport, officials said Monday (Feb. 3, 2025).
They also recovered more human remains from the Potomac River, although they declined to offer specifics, reiterating only that 55 of the 67 victims have been found and identified since the crash Wednesday.
Authorities have said the operation to remove the plane will take several days and they will then work to remove the military helicopter involved. The crash between the American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter over Washington D.C. was the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001.
More than 300 responders were taking part in the recovery effort at any given time, officials said. Two Navy barges were also deployed to lift heavy wreckage.
Washington, D.C. Fire Department Assistant Chief Gary Steen told a news briefing that officials are confident all of the victims would be found.
Divers and salvage workers are adhering to strict protocols and stopped moving debris at times when human remains were being recovered, said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Francis Pera. The “dignified recovery” of remains takes precedence over all else, he said.
Portions of the two aircraft that collided over the river Wednesday night near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport — an American Airlines jet with 64 people aboard and an Army Black Hawk helicopter with 3 aboard — are being loaded onto flatbed trucks and will be taken to a hangar for investigation. Crews hoped to recover the jet’s cockpit on Tuesday, Pera said.
The crash occurred when the jet, en route from Wichita, Kansas, was about to land. The Black Hawk was on a training mission. There were no survivors.
On Sunday, family members were taken in buses with a police escort to the Potomac River bank near where the two aircraft came to rest after colliding.
The plane’s passengers included figure skaters returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita and a group of hunters returning from a guided trip. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were in the helicopter.
Federal investigators were working to piece together the events that led to the collision. Full investigations typically take a year or more. Investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.
Experts stress that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, but the crowded airspace around Reagan Airport can challenge even experienced pilots.
The NTSB said Saturday that preliminary data showed conflicting readings about the altitudes of the airliner and the helicopter.
Investigators also said that about a second before impact, the jet’s flight recorder showed a change in its pitch. But they did not say whether that change in angle meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive maneuver to avoid the crash.
Data from the jet’s flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet (99 meters), plus or minus 25 feet (7.6 meters), when the crash happened, NTSB officials told reporters. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk at 200 feet (61 meters), the maximum allowed altitude for helicopters in the area.
The discrepancy has yet to be explained.
On Monday, officials cautioned against premature speculation about the cause of the crash or the helicopter’s altitude, or whether or why it may have been traveling above the 200-foot ceiling in the area.
“There are all kinds of reasons that you could deviate from an altitude, you know, something as simple as a flock of birds is in front of you or you may deviate if you see something that’s an obstacle or other threat,” said Col. Mark Ott, deputy director of aviation for the Army.
Investigators said they hoped to reconcile the difference with data from the helicopter’s black box and planned to refine the tower data, which can be less reliable. All five air traffic controllers in the Reagan Airport tower at the time of the collision have been interviewed, the NTSB said Monday.
February 3, 2025:
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Authorities say they have recovered the remains of 55 of the 67 people killed in the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001. Washington, D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said Sunday that divers still need to find the bodies of 12 more victims and are committed to the dignified recovery of remains as they prepare to lift wreckage from the Potomac River as early as Monday morning. Col. Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers says portions of the aircraft will be loaded onto flatbed trucks and taken to a hangar for further investigation. They spoke hours after families of the victims visited the crash site.
January 31, 2025:
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Police boats returned to the Potomac River on Friday (Jan. 31, 2025) as part of the recovery and investigation after a midair collision killed 67 people in the United States’ deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.
More than 40 bodies have been pulled from the river as the massive recovery effort continued, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Friday. The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Investigators have already recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder of the American Airlines plane that collided with an Army helicopter as the plane was landing Wednesday night at Ronald Reagan National Airport next to Washington, D.C. Officials are scrutinizing a range of factors in what National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Hommendy has called an “all-hands-on-deck event.”
All aboard the two aircraft were killed, with officials examining the actions of the military pilot as well as air traffic control after the helicopter apparently flew into the path of the American Airlines jet.
Air crash investigations can take months, and federal investigators told reporters Thursday they would not speculate on the cause.
Authorities were still looking for the helicopter’s black box recorder, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday on Fox News Channel. Other factors in the crash, including the helicopter’s altitude and whether the crew was using its night vision goggles, are still under investigation, Hegseth said.
Military aircraft frequently conduct such flights in and around the nation’s capital for familiarization with routes they would fly in case of a major catastrophe or an attack on the U.S. that would require relocation of key officials from the capital region.
“You need to train as you fight, you need to rehearse in ways that would reflect a real world scenario,” Hegseth said. He stressed that it remained the Pentagon’s duty to also mitigate risks, while conducting such training. But he underscored U.S. forces need “to ensure, if unfortunately, there were a real world event where things needed to happen we could respond to it day or night.”
The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members, and three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.
One air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes when the collision happened, according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration that was obtained by The Associated Press. Those duties are often divided between two people, but the airport typically combines the roles at 9:30 p.m., once traffic begins to slow down. On Wednesday the tower supervisor directed that they be combined earlier.
“The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the report said.
A person familiar with the matter, however, said the tower staffing that night was at a normal level. The positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks, during shift changes or when air traffic is slow, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.
The FAA has long struggled with a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kansas, carrying, among others, a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches, and four union steamfitters from the Washington area.
A top Army aviation official said the crew of the helicopter, a Black Hawk, was “very experienced” and familiar with the congested flying that occurs daily around the city.
“Both pilots had flown this specific route before, at night. This wasn’t something new to either one of them,” said Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation.
The helicopter’s maximum allowed altitude at the time was 200 feet (about 60 meters), Koziol said. It was not immediately clear whether it exceeded that limit, but Hegseth said altitude seemed to be a factor in the collision.
Koziol said investigators need to analyze the flight data before making conclusions about altitude.
President Donald Trump said in a Friday morning post on his Truth Social platform that the helicopter was “flying too high” at the time of the crash.
“It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???” Trump said. His comments come the day after he questioned the actions of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot involved in the midair collision with a commercial airliner, while also blaming diversity initiatives for undermining air safety.
Flights at Reagan National resumed around midday Thursday.
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight slammed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard and five people on the ground.
The last major 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, along with one person on the ground, bringing the total death toll to 50.
Experts often highlight that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, however. The National Safety Council estimates that Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash, while deaths on airplanes are too rare to calculate the odds. Figures from the Department of Transportation tell a similar story.
But the airspace around Reagan National can challenge even the most experienced pilots no matter how ideal the conditions. They must navigate hundreds of other commercial planes, military aircraft and restricted areas around sensitive sites.
Just over 24 hours before the fatal collision, a different regional jet had to go around for a second chance at landing at Reagan National after it was advised about a military helicopter nearby, according to flight tracking sites and control logs. It landed safely minutes later.
January 30, 2025, update:
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