More than 60 people are believed to have been killed after an American Airlines plane collided with an army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport near the District of Columbia in the US.
American Airlines said on Thursday that 60 passengers and four crew members were on board the jet travelling from Wichita, Kansas, to the United States capital. An unnamed army official confirmed that the helicopter, on a training flight, was carrying three soldiers who had taken off from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
Washington, DC Fire Chief John Donnelly said he did not expect any survivors, after both aircraft fell into a freezing Potomac River after the collision. Inflatable rescue boats were launched, and rescuers used light towers to illuminate the site.
Donnelly earlier described search efforts as a “highly complex operation”.
“The conditions out there are extremely rough for the responders,” he noted.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser also told a news conference at the airport that rescue efforts were under way to “recover fellow citizens”.
Here’s everything we know about the crash:
What happened and when?
At about 9pm local time (02:00 GMT), an inbound American Airlines aircraft (flight 5342), manufactured by the Canadian firm Bombardier, collided with a Sikorsky Black Hawk army helicopter as it approached the Ronald Reagan airport, located along the Potomac River southwest of DC.
Before the scheduled landing, air traffic controllers asked the pilots if they could land on Runway 33, and flight tracking sites showed that the pilots adjusted their flight path to align with the request.
Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the army helicopter if it could see the arriving plane.
“PAT25 [army helicopter], do you have a CRJ [American Airlines plane] in sight? PAT25, pass behind the CRJ,” an air traffic controller said at 8:47pm (ET on Wednesday, 01:47 GMT on Thursday).
At the time of the crash, air traffic controllers were heard saying, “Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three.”
“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,” another controller said.
Images from the midair collision, caught on a webcam at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, showed the two aircraft exploding into flames and plummeting into the Potomac River.
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority CEO John Potter said the airport would remain closed until at least 11am local time (16:00 GMT).
What do we know about the victims?
The governing skating body said several of the 60 passengers on board the plane were US ice skaters, family members, and coaches returning from a camp after a figure skating competition. The three people on the helicopter were all believed to be soldiers.
CBS News, citing a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation, said the bodies of at least 30 people had been recovered. US government officials have not mentioned anything about survivors.
Russian state news agency TASS reported that former figure skating world champions Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were among those killed.
The Kremlin expressed its condolences to the families of the Russian victims of the accident.
“There were other of our fellow citizens on board. It’s bad news today from Washington. We are sorry and send our condolences to families and friends,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
While no official death toll has been announced, US Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, from where the flight had originated, suggested most, if not all, on board had been killed.
“It’s really hard when you lose probably over 60 Kansans simultaneously,” he told a news conference at Reagan airport.
Dan DePodwin, AccuWeather’s senior director of forecast operations, told the Reuters news agency that hypothermia is a concern for anyone who might have survived the crash after the plane fell into the river.
“At these frigid water temperatures, the human body’s core temperature quickly drops. Exhaustion or unconsciousness can occur in as little as 15 to 30 minutes,” DePodwin said.
What is a Black Hawk helicopter?
The Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter is a military transport aircraft used by the navy, air force and coastguard.
The aerospace company Intergalactic said the aircraft can carry four crew members and “11 to 14 fully armed troops … or up to 20 lightly equipped passengers”.
What have officials said?
President Donald Trump questioned the actions of the army helicopter in a post on Truth Social.
“The helicopter was going straight at the aeroplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn,” Trump wrote.
“Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!,” he added.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on X that an investigation would be launched “immediately” by the army and the Department of Defense into the cause of the incident.
Todd Curtis, CEO of consultancy firm AirSafe.com, told Al Jazeera that the collision was “very unusual”.
“The Washington national airport, where this event occurred, is one of the busiest in the country and it’s very, very well managed by air control,” Curtis, a former airline safety engineer for Boeing, said.
“It’s surprising to me that something that is routine for the military somehow ended in a tragedy. I suspect there are several things that had to go wrong for this to happen,” he added.
