An American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members on Wednesday collided with a US Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River.
There were multiple fatalities, a person familiar with the matter said, but the precise number of victims was unclear as rescue crews hunted for survivors.
Three soldiers were onboard the helicopter, a UH-60 Blackhawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, an army official said.
Photo: AFP
There was no immediate word on the cause of the collision, but all takeoffs and landings from the airport were halted, as dive teams scoured the site and helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in a methodical search for bodies.
Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and what appeared to be the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.
“We are going to recover our fellow citizens,” District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a somber news conference at the airport in which she declined to say how many bodies had been recovered.
The person who told The Associated Press that there had been multiple deaths was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to on condition of anonymity.
US President Donald Trump said he had been “fully briefed on this terrible accident” and, referring to the passengers, added: “May God bless their souls.”
In Taipei, President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday extended his condolences to the families of those who were killed or injured in the collision. the accident.
“Our thoughts are with the American people following the tragic air collision near Washington, DC,” Lai wrote in English on X.
“We send our sincere condolences to the victims’ families and pray for swift and effective search and rescue operations,” he said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) also issued a statement extending its condolences to the victims and their families.
It urged Taiwanese nationals in the greater Washington area who or need assistance to call the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US through its emergency contact number at (1-202) 669-0180.
Alternatively, Taiwanese travelling in the US could have friends or relatives in Taiwan contact MOFA directly through the Bureau of Consular Affairs by calling its toll-free number at 0800-085-095.
Passengers on the flight included a group of figure skaters, their coaches and family members who were returning from a development camp that followed the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.
“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” US Figure Skating said in a statement.
The US Federal Aviation Administration said the midair crash occurred before 9pm when a regional jet that had departed from Wichita collided with a military helicopter on a training flight while on approach to an airport runway. It occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, about 5m south of the White House and the Capitol.
Investigators will try to piece together the aircrafts’ final moments before their collision, including contact with air traffic controllers, as well as a loss of altitude by the passenger jet.
American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 122m and a speed of about 225kph when it suffered a rapid loss of altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from its radio transponder. The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet, manufactured in 2004, can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.
A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. Flight tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway.
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: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
About 300 first responders were on scene. Inflatable rescue boats were launched into the Potomac River from a point along the George Washington Parkway, just north of the airport, and first responders set up light towers from the shore to illuminate the area near the collision site. At least a half-dozen boats were scanning the water using searchlights.
“It’s a highly complex operation,” Washington Fire and Emergency Services Chief John Donnelly said. “The conditions out there are extremely rough for the responders.”
The crash is serving as a major test for two of the Trump administration’s newest agency leaders.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posted on social media that an investigation has been “launched immediately” by the army and the Department of Defense. US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy told a news conference at the airport early yesterday that his agency would provide all possible resources to the investigation.
Additional reporting by staff writer and CNA
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