A regional jet flown for American Airlines Group Inc. collided in a deadly midair crash with a military helicopter as it flew into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, prompting a search and rescue operation for any survivors in the Potomac River.
The CRJ700 regional jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew had come in from Wichita, Kansas, when it hit the Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter with three military personnel on board while approaching the runway just before 9 p.m. local time. Rescue teams are working through the wreckage, officials said at a press briefing. They declined to say if anyone survived the crash.
“We’re waiting for more concrete information that would indicate what transpired, how this happened,” Republican Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas told reporters at the airport. “But more importantly, we’re hoping that there are survivors.”
The collision adds to a growing number of deadly aviation accidents over the past year, following an extended period of practically no fatalities in the civil aviation industry. On Jan. 2, 2024, a Japan Airlines Airbus A350 collided with a smaller aircraft as it landed in Tokyo, killing everyone on board the stationary plane but sparing those on the widebody jet, which was destroyed in a subsequent fire. Last month, a Boeing 737 attempting an emergency landing in South Korea skidded on its belly into a concrete wall that sat just beyond the runway. The Dec. 29 incident killed all but two of the 181 passengers and crew on board.
The aircraft involved in Wednesday’s collision typically seats 65 people and is generally used for shorter trips. Moran said the particular route is a flight he’s “very familiar with,” having flown from Wichita to Reagan airport “many times.” The jet was flying at 142 mph about 400 feet above the Potomac River on approach for landing on Reagan airport’s runway 33 before data stopped recording, according to Flightradar24 data.
Reagan airport has suspended all aircraft take-offs and landings in response to the incident, the airport operator said. The airport said it would remain closed until at least 11 a.m. Friday local time.
Emergency personnel were swarming the airport and bright red notices flashed on terminal screens, alerting passengers that an emergency had led to flight cancellations. The salvage mission is proving difficult because the area is windy and there are pieces of ice in the water, as first responders work their way through the fuselage of the aircraft, Fire and Emergency Medical Services Chief John Donnelly said at the press briefing.
“It’s just dangerous and hard to work in,” Donnelly said. “There’s not a lot of lights, you’re out there searching every square inch of space to see if you can find anybody. The divers are doing the same thing in the water. The water is dark, it is murky, and that is a very tough condition for them to dive in.
The last passenger airplane to crash in the U.S. was Colgan Air Flight 3407 near Buffalo, New York, in 2009. The flight, carrying 45 passengers, was a regional feeder to Continental Airlines.
American Airlines said it is in contact with and assisting first responders. It also has set up a toll-free information line for family members of passengers on the flight. American Eagle is a network of six regional carriers operating for the larger airline, three of which are owned by American. PSA Airlines, which was operating the flight, is the smallest of those three, using 130 aircraft on an average of 600 daily flights. It’s based in Dayton, Ohio.
The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation, aided by the Federal Aviation Administration. The NTSB said it has dispatched a rapid-response team to work on the probe.
The incident is an immediate test for President Donald Trump’s administration in his second week in office. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was sworn into his job just days ago, and Sean Duffy, who as Transportation secretary oversees the FAA, was confirmed on Tuesday. The FAA doesn’t have an administrator at the moment, after Mike Whitaker stepped down on the day of Trump’s inauguration.
Trump voiced his own frustration around the collision, saying in a Truth Social post that the airplane was on a “perfect and routine” line of approach.
“The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time,” he wrote. “It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn.”
Duffy, who also spoke at the briefing, has been in the job for little over a day. He said that while it’s too soon to say what caused the accident, there will be “a review of what happened here tonight, and after the FAA studies what happened, we will take appropriate action if necessary, to modify flight paths and permissions.”
Reagan Airport is in Arlington, Virginia, just across the river from the nation’s capital and just south of the Pentagon. The Army for years has flown night and day helicopter missions in the Northern Virginia skies near Reagan Airport.
Trump said on Wednesday night that he had been “fully briefed” on the incident and is monitoring the situation. Hegseth said the agency was actively monitoring the situation and was “poised to assist.”
“We will provide all resources necessary as we go through this recovery,” Duffy said.
The crash revived memories of an air disaster in January 1982 when an Air Florida Boeing Co. 737 struggled for altitude after taking off with ice in it engines and on the wings, struck the 14th Street bridge and then slammed into the frozen Potomac. Seventy four people who were aboard the plane were killed, and another four on the ground.
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—With assistance from Siddharth Philip, Danny Lee, Skylar Woodhouse, John Harney, Derek Wallbank, Richard Clough and Tony Capaccio.
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