A passenger plane carrying 64 people crashed into the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., after colliding in mid-air with a military helicopter during a training flight while approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday (29) night.
The plane, American Eagle Flight 5342, had taken off from Wichita, Kansas, with 60 passengers and four crew members on board. Around 9 PM, it collided with a U.S. Army helicopter carrying a crew of three.
Helicopters, police boats, and dive teams quickly mobilized after the accident to search for survivors in the water near the airport. The dark and extremely cold conditions increased the challenge.
On Thursday morning, local and federal authorities said they believed no one had survived the mid-air collision and crash. Twenty-seven bodies were recovered from the aircraft and one body from the helicopter, said Chief John Donnelly of the Washington Fire and EMS Department in a press conference on Thursday (31).
The collision was captured on a video from a live webcam operated by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a few miles north of the accident site.
At 8:47 PM on the stream, two aircraft are seen colliding, resulting in a fireball followed by a trail of smoke. Before the collision, the plane was approaching Runway 33 at Reagan National Airport.
The plane and the helicopter were on normal flights before the collision, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Helicopters and planes typically fly close to each other in D.C. airspace, he said on Thursday.
“It is not uncommon for a military aircraft to fly over the river and a plane to land at DCA,” the code for Reagan Airport, Duffy said, adding that it was also a clear night. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration will analyze the wreckage, he said. The pilot was also experienced, according to Robert Isom, CEO of American Airlines.
The moments before the collision appear to have been captured in an audio recording, according to LiveATC.net, a website that streams air traffic control radio transmissions. In the recording, an air traffic controller is heard instructing the helicopter to pass behind the plane. There was “no failure” in communication between the two aircraft and the control tower, Duffy said.
Figure skaters are among the passengers on the plane.
Figure skaters, their families, and their coaches were on board the plane, according to U.S. Figure Skating, the American governing body of the sport. They were returning from a training camp that followed the national figure skating championship held in Wichita, Kansas, over the weekend.
Russian citizens, including figure skaters, were also on board, the Kremlin said.
The accident is being considered the most serious aviation disaster involving a commercial jet in the United States since 2009, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y., killing 50 people.
Source: The New York Times