An American Airlines jet with 60 passengers and four crew members onboard collided with an army helicopter carrying three soldiers while landing at Reagan National airport in Washington DC on Wednesday evening.
Footage from a security camera at the airport shows the moment of the collision.
Footage of the collision at Ronald Reagan Washington Airport.
Both aircraft fell into the Potomac River. Emergency responders said they did not believe there were any survivors.
What aircraft were involved?
American Eagle Flight 5342 was operated by PSA Airlines, an Ohio-based regional subsidiary of American Airlines. The plane was a CRJ700, the airline said, from a line of regional jets made by Canada’s Bombardier, later sold to Mitsubishi.
A Bombardier CRJ700 Photograph: Ed Parsons Aviation Photography/Alamy
It was flying from Wichita, Kansas, and its passengers included ice skaters, family and coaches returning from events in the city.
The helicopter was a Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk. It had been on a military training flight and was operating out of Davison Army Airfield in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, south of Washington DC.
File photo of a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. Photograph: Ivan Batinic/Alamy
What happened before the collision?
A few minutes before the jet was due to land, air traffic controllers asked the pilots if they could land on a shorter runway than the north-south runway it was originally heading for, and the pilots agreed. Controllers cleared the jet to land and the plane adjusted its approach to the new runway, as seen in this view:
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, calling on its pilot to “pass behind” the jet. There was no reply. Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
Where is Reagan National airport?
The Washington region has three major airports, but Reagan National, which lies on the Potomac, is by far the closest to the capital.
The crash occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the US. The airspace is extremely busy, with military and commercial craft ferrying thousands of passengers, including top government and military officials. This satellite image highlight’s the airport’s proximity to the centre of DC.
Satellite view of Reagan National airport
Because of the short length of the runways at Reagan National, more than 90% of flights use its main north-south runway, making it the busiest runway in the US, with more than 800 daily takeoffs and landings.
There have been several near-miss incidents at Reagan National that have sparked alarm, including a near-collision in May 2024 between an American Airlines jet and a small aeroplane, and one in April 2024 between Southwest and JetBlue planes.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
