Rescuers are scouring the Potomac River in Washington DC after an American Airlines jet carrying 64 people – 60 passengers and four crew members – collided with a US army Black Hawk helicopter with three soldiers onboard while attempting to land at Reagan national airport.
All takeoffs and landings from the airport near the capital were halted as helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in search of survivors. According to media reports, rescuers have recovered more than 30 bodies from the river so far, while divers have found one of the plane’s two data recorders, known as black boxes.
Among the passengers on the plane were athletes, coaches and family members associated with the US figure-skating programme, its governing body confirmed, who were returning from attending a national development camp held in conjunction with the US figure-skating championships.
John Donnelly, a Washington DC fire chief, told a press briefing that about 300 emergency workers were working in “extremely rough” conditions and gave little indication they expected to find anyone alive.
“We’re going to be out there as long as it takes,” Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, told reporters.
The military helicopter was participating in a training flight, NBC and Reuters reported. “We can confirm that the aircraft involved in tonight’s incident was an army UH-60 helicopter from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, out of Davison army airfield, Fort Belvoir, during a training flight,” a military official told NBC, adding more details would be provided once available.
Donald Trump said in a statement he had been “fully briefed on this terrible accident” and, referring to the passengers, added: “May God bless their souls.” In a subsequent social media post, the president said the crash “should have been prevented”.
The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said “every available” US Coast Guard resource had been deployed to help with rescue efforts. About 300 first responders were reportedly working on the rescue operation.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the midair crash occurred at about 9pm on Wednesday when American Airlines flight 5342 – a regional jet that had departed from Wichita, Kansas – collided with the helicopter while on approach to an airport runway. The collision took place 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.
The Kremlin expressed its condolences after it emerged that the Russian figure-skating couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the 1994 world pairs title and who lived in the US, were on the plane.
Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan national airport at an altitude of about 400ft and a speed of about 140mph when there was 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.
Audio from LiveATC.net, a respected source for in-flight recording, captured the final communications between the three crew members of the helicopter – call sign PAT25 – before it collided with the plane. Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
The crash was witnessed by another plane, whose crew called in to the control tower, saying: “Tower, did you see that?”
after newsletter promotion
One of the air traffic controllers can be heard saying: “Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three.” Another controller then said: “Both the helicopter and the plane crashed in the river … I just saw a fireball and then it was just gone. I haven’t seen anything since they hit the river. But it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit.”
The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400ft short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river. The Potomac River is about 8ft deep where the aircraft crashed.
The tower immediately began diverting other aircraft from Reagan.
Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center showed two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball.
Robert Isom, the chief executive of American Airlines, released a statement providing a phone number for relatives who believed they may have lost loved ones onboard the flight. “Our concern is for the passengers and crew onboard the aircraft,” he said. “We are in contact with authorities and assisting with emergency response efforts.”
On 13 January 1982, an Air Florida flight plummeted into the Potomac, killing 78 people in a crash attributed to bad weather.
The last fatal crash involving a US commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone onboard the Bombardier 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.
Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
