South Florida airports impacted by plane crash near Washington D.C.
MIAMI - The plane crash near Washington D.C. is impacting flights at South Florida's airports.
Thursday morning, flights into and out of Ronald Reagan International Airport were canceled. The airport, which closed at 9 p.m. Wednesday will remain that way through at least 11 a.m. Passengers are being met with signs that read "Due to an emergency situation, all flights are being held on the airfield" and additional information will be available as it is received.
Wednesday evening, American Eagle Flight No. 5342, a regional jetliner carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, and a Black Hawk helicopter collided in midair and crashed into the Potomac River near the airport. The plane had taken off from Wichita, Kansas. The helicopter was on a training flight and had belonged to B Company, 12th Aviation Battalion out of Fort Belvoir in Virginia, Joint Task Force-National Capitol Region media chief Heather Chairez told CBS News.
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Back to basics: Army revamps flight school after deadly crashes
In the wake of a string of deadly military aviation accidents over the past several years, the U.S. Army is launching a major overhaul of how it trains new pilots that focuses on getting back to the basics. The overhaul includes rethinking the type of aircraft used for training, along with a likely shift to a contractor-owned-and-operated schoolhouse. 'I think I have one sacred responsibility and that is to deliver competent aviators to the government,' Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence Command, said at an Army aviation conference in Nashville, Tennessee, last month. 'I'm not sure that I'm doing that in spades right now.' The fatal Jan. 29 collision of a U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., and a spate of Army aviation mishaps over the last several years have been at the forefront of the minds of Army aviation leaders as they attempt to rein in the crisis and improve aviation safety. In addition to other efforts to try to reemphasize a culture of rigorous training and safety, the Army began taking a hard look at redeveloping its basic training program at Fort Novosel, Alabama, fueled by the most mishap-heavy years in Army aviation history since 2007. The Army found inexperienced crews were 'out-driving their headlights, out-training the experience that was in their force at whatever level,' then-commander of the AACE, Maj. Gen. Mac McCurry, told Defense News on a 2024 trip to Fort Novosel, Alabama, home of Army aviation training. 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a day ago
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Search continues for N.Y. woman who went hiking after father's body on Mount Katahdin in Maine
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