Home D.C. plane crash live updates: One black box found, 67 dead after American Airlines flight collides with military helicopter

D.C. plane crash live updates: One black box found, 67 dead after American Airlines flight collides with military helicopter

· January 31, 2025 · 0 Comment

An American Airlines plane with 60 passengers and four crew members on board collided with a military helicopter near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, plunging into the Potomac River.

Washington’s Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said Thursday morning that 28 bodies were recovered from the scene: 27 passengers from the jet and one from the helicopter. That number grew to at least 40 bodies recovered from the Potomac River as of Thursday evening, CNN and CBS News reported, citing law enforcement sources.

“At this point, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident,” Donnelly said, adding that first responders were “switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation.”

The commercial flight from Wichita, Kan., was making its approach to Reagan National Airport when the collision occurred shortly before 9 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The Black Hawk helicopter — operating out of Fort Belvoir, Va., with a crew of three — was on a training mission, according to the Defense Department. Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office told CNN Thursday evening that one of two black boxes aboard the American flight had been recovered.

Among those who died in the crash were figure skaters and their family members and coaches. U.S. Figure Skating, the national governing body for the sport, said “several members of our skating community” were on board the flight from Kansas, “returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.”

At a press briefing on Thursday, President Trump held a moment of silence for the crash victims. “We are in mourning,” he said. “This has really shaken a lot of people, including people, sadly, from other nations who were on the flight.”

Live54 updates

  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 8:59 AM GMT+8
  • Wichita Mayor Lily Wu hugs a person at a prayer vigil in Wichita, Kan., on Thursday. (Travis Heying/AP)
  • Most Americans woke up Thursday to the news of Wednesday night’s fatal crash between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. The aviation disaster claimed the lives of 67 people, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes in U.S. history.
  • Here’s a recap of what transpired Thursday as investigators worked to recover the remains of those lost.
  • As of Thursday evening, CNN and CBS were reporting that at least 40 bodies had been recovered from the Potomac River, citing law enforcement sources.
  • One of two black box data recorders aboard Flight 5342 was recovered.
  • A preliminary report by the Federal Aviation Administration reportedly found that staffing in the air traffic control tower at the airport was “not normal” at the time of the midair collision.
  • Wednesday’s crash came just 24 hours after a near miss between another commercial jet and a helicopter at Reagan National.
  • American Airlines CEO Robert Isom sent a letter to employees saying the company’s top priority was supporting the families who had lost loved ones.
  • Residents of Wichita, Kan., where Flight 5342 originated, held a prayer vigil to remember those killed.
  • President Trump attempted to place blame for the crash on former President Joe Biden and diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices at the FAA.
  • Trump also faced criticism due to the fact that FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker stepped down on Jan. 20, following run-ins with Elon Musk.
  • Trump appointed Chris Rocheleau, a longtime senior official with the FAA, to temporarily run the agency.
  • Newly confirmed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy faced his first real test in office, telling reporters, “It is not standard to have aircraft collide.”
  • More than a dozen figure skaters were killed in the crash, many of whom had attended the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita last week.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 8:14 AM GMT+8
  • One of two black boxes aboard American Airlines Flight 5342 was recovered on Thursday, Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell’s office told CNN.
  • Assuming their contents are undamaged, the plane’s black boxes could help investigators pinpoint the cause of Wednesday night’s deadly collision with a Black Hawk helicopter.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 8:03 AM GMT+8
  • Twenty-four hours before Wednesday’s deadly crash between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter, a near miss between another helicopter and a commercial plane transpired, the Washington Post reported.
  • As Republic Airlines Flight 4514 approached Reagan National Airport just after 8:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, the plane’s cockpit crew alerted the control tower that a helicopter had appeared near its flight path.
  • “We had an RA with a helicopter traffic below us,” a crew member told air traffic controllers at roughly 8:05 p.m., the Post reported, using the abbreviation for a resolution advisory, which pilots use to indicate their plane is at risk of colliding with another aircraft.
  • Flight 4514 aborted its initial attempt at landing, making a loop and successfully touching down at 8:16 p.m., according to flight records obtained by the Post.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 7:41 AM GMT+8
  • Updating her statement issued earlier in the day, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) superintendent Michelle Reid said Thursday evening that three students and six parents from FCPS “were lost” in Wednesday night’s plane crash at Reagan National Airport.
  • “What we know at this time is that three of our FCPS students and six of our FCPS parents were lost, affecting multiple schools and departments here at FCPS,” Reid said, adding that two of the parents killed were current or former school staff members.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 7:21 AM GMT+8
  • At a Thursday press conference, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said that the National Transportation Safety Board would likely make the manifest for American Airlines Flight 5342 available by Friday afternoon.
  • The NTSB has not yet identified the identities of the passengers, all of whom are believed to have died in Wednesday night’s crash with a Black Hawk helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, because it is still in the process of notifying the families of those presumed killed.
  • “There are some folks who were on that plane who were from overseas and so that’s partially the reason for the delay,” Kelly said.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 6:36 AM GMT+8
  • Last May, Congress voted to add five new long-distance round-trip flights to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as part of an extensive bill authorizing $105 billion to the Federal Aviation Administration.
  • But months earlier, in February 2024, four Democratic senators from Maryland and Virginia, including Sen. Tim Kaine, issued a statement warning that air traffic at Reagan was already congested and that allowing that many additional incoming and outgoing flights would be “reckless” and “gambling with the safety of everyone who uses this airport.”
  • In December, the Department of Transportation announced that it had awarded five airlines slots to fly passengers from Reagan to select western destinations, from San Antonio to Seattle.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 6:27 AM GMT+8
  • Wichita Mayor Lily Wu and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly held a news conference Thursday afternoon to give updates on Wednesday night’s plane crash. American Airlines Flight 5342 had taken off from Wichita, Kan., before colliding with a helicopter near a runway at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.
  • “I’m proud that this community is coming together in a time like this,” Wu said at her second press conference of the day. “A tragic event that should unite us all to remember that life is precious.”
  • Gov. Kelly said that Kansas officials were in communication with federal partners to investigate what caused the plane collision.
  • “Both the mayor and I have been on the phone constantly since last night with representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board, from the governors of Virginia and Maryland and all sorts of other folks who are involved in this tragedy,” Kelly said.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 6:01 AM GMT+8
  • The air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
  • Wednesday night’s fatal crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport involving a commercial airplane and a Black Hawk military helicopter has drawn renewed attention to air traffic controllers and what role they may have played in the accident that is believed to have killed 67 people.
  • The disaster, the cause of which remains under investigation, comes during a long-running nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, and staffing may have played a factor. The control tower at Reagan Airport has been understaffed for years, the New York Times reported, and at the time of the crash, a controller who was in charge of helicopter traffic was also tasked with instructing planes, the Associated Press reported. Ideally, those jobs are handled by two controllers.
  • Read more from Yahoo News.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 5:38 AM GMT+8
  • American Airlines CEO Robert Isom sent a letter to employees on Thursday that the airline’s top priority was supporting the families of the passengers lost in Wednesday night’s “heartbreaking accident.”
  • “Right now, the strength of the entire airline is focused on taking care of the families and loved ones of those on board,” Isom said.
  • “I’m on the ground in D.C. along with members of our GO Team, and we are deploying all of our resources to make sure we do everything we can to take care of the needs of the families and loved ones of our passengers and crew members,” Isom said in the letter. “That is our priority.”
  • He also thanked first responders who continued recovery efforts.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 5:21 AM GMT+8
  • Locals in Wichita, Kan., came together Thursday afternoon for a public prayer vigil at city hall to remember the victims of the deadly collision between an American Airlines jet that took off from Wichita and collided with an Army helicopter on its descent into Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.
  • “Tragedies like this remind us that we are one community; whether a Wichitan, a Kansan or an American,” Wichita Mayor Lily Wu said Thursday. “We are one community and in times of struggle, we do come together in grief and sadness to lift one another.”
  • The Rev. Pamela Hughes at a prayer vigil on Thursday for victims of the plane crash. (Nick Oxford/Reuters)
  • Wichita Mayor Lily Wu extends a hug at a prayer vigil Thursday. (Nick Oxford/Reuters)
  • Wichita City Hall, as locals attend a prayer vigil for victims. (Nick Oxford/Reuters)
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 5:04 AM GMT+8
  • A preliminary report from the Federal Aviation Administration obtained by multiple news outlets said that staffing in the air traffic control tower at Reagan National Airport was “not normal” at the time of the midair collision on Wednesday.
  • According to the Associated Press, one air traffic controller was working two positions at the time of the crash.
  • The New York Times reported that the controller was managing both helicopters and planes in the vicinity.
  • “The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the FAA stated.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 4:28 AM GMT+8
  • The father of one of the two pilots on board the plane that collided with the military helicopter told Fox 5 in Atlanta that he is grieving the death of his 28-year-old son, Sam Lilley.
  • “This is undoubtedly the worst day of my life,” Timothy Lilley said.
  • Sam Lilley, of Savannah, Ga., was engaged and planned to get married in the fall, his father said.
  • Timothy Lilley described himself as a longtime former Army helicopter pilot who is familiar with the air traffic in the Washington, D.C., area.
  • “I was a helicopter pilot in the Army for 20 years. In the ’90s, I used to fly in and out of the Pentagon regularly, and I can tell you if you are flying on the route over the Potomac and wearing night vision goggles, it’s going to be very hard to see that plane. If you’re not wearing the goggles, then you might have a chance,” he said.
  • Investigators have yet to determine what caused the deadly collision. U.S. officials said that the helicopter was on a routine nighttime training mission and that the crew was equipped with night vision goggles, but it’s unclear whether they were using them at the time of the incident.
  • “From what I can see, those guys turned right into the jet,” Timothy Lilley said. “I think the PSA jet was doing everything right. The Army pilot made a grave error. It hurts me because those are my brothers, and now my son is dead.”
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 4:19 AM GMT+8
  • At the press briefing, National Transportation Safety Board member J. Todd Inman said it is too soon to say what caused the deadly mid-air collision between the commercial jet and military helicopter.
  • Inman said that the NTSB investigative team will be on scene “as long as it takes” to determine “not just what happened, but why it happened, and to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again.”
  • “We will not be determining the probable cause of the accident while we are here on scene,” he said. “Nor will we speculate about what may have caused this accident.”
  • The NTSB hopes to release a preliminary report on the crash within 30 days, Inman said.
  • During a Q&A with reporters, Inman said investigators have not ruled out human error or mechanical failure as a possible cause.
  • “We don’t know enough facts yet to be able to rule in or out either,” he said.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 4:16 AM GMT+8
  • The flight data recorders from the American Airlines jet and Army helicopter that collided Wednesday evening have not been recovered yet, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.
  • “We know they’re there. They are underwater,” Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the NTSB, told reporters. “This is not unusual for the NTSB. We have many times recovered flight data recorders in water. We have our lab right here that’s about a mile from the NTSB.”
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 3:56 AM GMT+8
  • Captain Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger, who safely landed a passenger plane in the Hudson River in 2009, told the New York Times that Wednesday night’s crash happened during an “exceptionally safe” period in aviation history but is a reminder of “how vigilant we have to be.”
  • Before Wednesday, there hadn’t been a fatal commercial plane crash in the U.S. in nearly 16 years.
  • “We’ve had to learn important lessons literally with blood too often, and we had finally gotten beyond that, to where we could learn from incidents, and not accidents,” Sullenberger said.
  • The retired pilot and aviation expert also said Reagan National Airport, the destination of the American Airlines plane that collided with the Army helicopter, was built in the 1930’s and is one of the nation’s most challenging airports to navigate.
  • “It hasn’t changed much since then,” Sullenberger said of the airport. “Of course, we’ve added technology to it. But a lot of the technology is old.”
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 3:47 AM GMT+8
  • Wednesday night’s tragic collision involving an American Airlines jet and Army helicopter over the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport highlighted issues of congested airspace in Washington, D.C.
  • The area has multiple military bases and three major airports, meaning military aircraft and passenger airplanes share the same airspace. Last year there were two near-miss incidents at Reagan National Airport that caused alarm involving civilian aircraft and coincided with a shortage of air traffic controllers.
  • Reuters reports:

Reagan National is particularly busy. Over a three-year period ending in 2019, there were 88,000 helicopter flights within 30 miles (48 km) of Reagan National Airport, including about 33,000 military and 18,000 law enforcement flights, the Government Accountability Office said in a 2021 report.

  • Read more from Reuters: Washington, D.C. airspace challenges highlighted by passenger jet and Army helicopter collision
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 3:22 AM GMT+8
  • Former Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan, right, arriving at the Skating Club of Boston with fellow Olympic skater Tenley Albright, left. (Charles Krupa/AP)
  • Members of the international skating community have been paying tribute Thursday to the victims of the fatal collision on Wednesday night between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines aircraft, which had reportedly been carrying several U.S. and Russian figure skaters along with their coaches and family members.
  • Two-time figure skating Olympic medalist Nancy Kerrigan spoke to the media on Thursday: “I feel for the athletes, the skaters and their families,” she said, “but anyone that was on that plane, not just the skaters because it’s just such a tragic event. … Tell people around you that you love them because you just never know.”
  • Former Olympic silver medalist Ashley Wagner posted a message on her Instagram Story that read: “My heart breaks for my skating family today. I can’t put into words what this feeling is — I’m horrified, heartbroken, devastated and shocked. It makes you realize that ‘my heart goes out to’ and ‘condolences to the families’ simply are not enough.”
  • Former Olympic gold medalist Tara Lapinski wrote a message on her Instagram Story that accompanied a screenshot of a news headline about the tragic crash. “It’s unimaginable the loss,” she wrote. “We will mourn their loss and ALWAYS remember them. My heart is with all the families affected — that part I have no words for. “Strength” and “love” won’t do it justice. So many of our own were on this tragic flight and my heart aches, for them and for everyone part of this devastating accident.”
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 3:17 AM GMT+8
  • Search crews work at the site of the crash in the Potomac River early Thursday. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
  • Witnesses in the vicinity of the crash have been describing to various news outlets what they saw and heard.
  • Ari Schulman, of Alexandria, Va., told CNN that he was driving home along a highway near Reagan National Airport looking at the line of planes coming in when he “saw sparks flying” on the underside of a plane.
  • “I believe what I saw was the collision,” Schulman said. “It looked like a Roman candle.”
  • Courtney Cain told the Washington Post she was at home at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling when she heard a bang outside. She looked out her window and saw a flash and immediately feared it might have been a plane crash. Those fears were soon realized when she saw news of the crash on television. “I’m honestly still shaking,” Cain said.
  • Another witness, Abadi Ismail, told Reuters that he was getting ready to go to bed at his home in south Washington, D.C., when he heard a loud bang. He said it was “a very unusual sound, something you don’t hear on a daily basis.
  • “It’s more like in a war zone, something you hear on the movies, action,” Ismail said. “So that caught my attention. I looked at the sky, I looked out the window, and all I could see at that moment was just smoke from the south side of Reagan Airport.”
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 2:53 AM GMT+8
  • U.S. figure skater Spencer Lane, 16, was on board the American Airlines jet that collided with an Army helicopter. Spencer shared a photo aboard the jet on the runway to his Instagram Story before it took off on Wednesday.
  • The post read “ICT -> DCA,” which are the airport codes to indicate he was traveling from Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport, in Kansas, to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, in Washington, D.C.
  • Fri, January 31, 2025 at 2:35 AM GMT+8
  • The six members of Kansas’s congressional delegation — including four House members and two senators — released a joint statement mourning those killed in the crash:

Our prayers are with the families and friends of those affected by the tragic plane crash that occurred in our nation’s capital. South central Kansas is a close community, and it’s likely that many of us directly or indirectly know people who were on Flight 5342 on Jan. 29. This is a sad day for Kansans and our nation, and this community, steeped in aviation and manufacturing history, will feel the pain of this catastrophe for years to come. We are grateful for the first responders and rescue crews who worked through the night. Our focus now is supporting the family and friends of those who perished, including the crew and military personnel, and then getting answers for the grieving individuals who have lost a loved one and making sure this doesn’t happen again.

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