On Jany 29th, 2025, around 9 p.m. EST, an American Eagle Airplane with 60 passengers and 4 crew members collided into an Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying 3 people near the Reagan Washington Airport in Washington D.C. This resulted in a search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River. More than 30 bodies were recovered. CNBC reports it is the worst air disaster on U.S. soil in more than 15 years.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the midair collision occurred around 9 p.m. EST with American Eagle flight 5342 that had departed from Wichita, Kansas collided with a military Blackhawk helicopter while on approach to an airport runway. The helicopter carrying three people was on a training flight, an official told the Associated Press. A former NTSB investigator who worked on another crash in the area in 1982, said the airspace is highly restricted due to the presence of several monuments. “It’s very tight airspace,” Alan Diehl told NBC’s “Early Today”. “You really must be on your game. The pilots and the controllers that fly in and out of there are well trained and well aware of these restrictions,” he said. Rami, a fellow student at Wharton High School, says, “I think it was probably the helicopters’ fault, especially because planes have a direct track to follow unlike helicopters.” he also says, “I don’t think much will change in the U.S. because of this but the families that have to go through the death of one of their loved ones will.”
U.S. Figure Skating issued a statement confirming that several members, including athletes, coaches, and family members, were aboard the American Airlines jet. “U.S. Figure Skating can confirm that several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, which collided with a helicopter yesterday evening in Washington, D.C.,” the statement said. They were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.
The latest update from NBC News says emergency crews have recovered more than 30 bodies from the water after the air disaster near Reagan National Airport, two sources familiar with search efforts said. The D.C. Medical Examiner is calling the recovery center the largest recovery operation undertaken in decades. Images showed boats around a partly submerged wing and what appeared to be the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage. Helicopters flew overhead with powerful search lights scanning the murky waters. Another student at Wharton High School, Jeremiah Brown, says, “This incident is not a good look on the U.S. especially in our capital city and it is also putting the government and president in danger since all of the historical monuments and The White House are there.”
Emergency vehicles lit up the banks of the Potomac in a long line of blinking red lights. The rescue team had to go into the river and try to find any survivors that could be there that they could save or if they could see if they could identify bodies and secure them. By early Thursday morning, the water temperature was just above freezing.
