American Airlines Plane Crash: 19 Bodies Recovered; Russian Skating Champions On Board; Trump Weighs In
UPDATED: The bodies of 19 people have reportedly been recovered after an American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter near Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C.
The American Eagle flight 5342, operated by American Airlines subsidiary PSA, was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members. It collided with a Sikorsky H-60 Blackhawk, carrying three people, over the Potomac River.
More from Deadline
Gospel Music Assn. Hall of Fame Quartet Members Die In Plane Crash
Michael Azzolino Named Drama VP, Overall Deals Head Nne Ebong Also Promoted At Netflix
Sony Pushes 'Insidious' Movie To 2026, Dates Darren Aronofsky Pic 'Caught Stealing'
Russian state media reported that Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, Russian-born ice skating coaches and former world champions, were on board the PSA plane.
American Airlines said in a statement: 'There were 60 passengers and four crew members on board the aircraft.' It identified the flight as American Eagle flight 5342 operated by PSA. According to the company's web site, PSA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of American.
At a 1 a.m. press conference, officials maintained that the operation was still a rescue effort, though Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall assumed fatalities.
'We mourn with the families who've lost loved ones,' he said. Later asked by CNN if he had had fatalities confirmed to him Marshall said, 'No, but I'm a physician and I'm not stupid. There have been no ambulances leaving here.'
Earlier in the night, the FAA issued the following statement:
A PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet collided in midair with a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter while on approach to Runway 33 at Reagan Washington National Airport around 9 p.m. local time. PSA was operating as Flight 5342 for American Airlines. It departed from Wichita, Kansas. The FAA and NTSB will investigate. The NTSB will lead the investigation.
In a social media post, President Donald Trump, who had been fully briefed according to the White House, questioned how the crash happened. 'It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn't the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn't the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane,' he wrote. 'This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented.'
DC police confirmed the crash had taken place over the Potomac River and that search and rescue operations were taking place in the river itself. A fire official said the water that dive crews were working in is about eight feet deep, filled with ice and murky. The temperature in the area is expected to 'drop below freezing…with lows in the 20s,' according to the National Weather Service. Flights into and out of the airport were quickly halted.
First reports of the crash came in about 8:53 p.m. ET. Some initial reports identified the helicopter as a DCPD aircraft. Police officials debunked that contention.
Joint MPD and @dcfireems statement on current search and rescue operation underway in the Potomac River. pic.twitter.com/jlyUs0m8Ho
— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) January 30, 2025
Fox News, CNN and MSNBC quickly jumped to coverage with updates from reporters on the scene detailing rescue efforts on the river. They also played dramatic footage of what appeared to be a mid-air crash not far off the ground and then the flash of an explosion.
The White House also issued the following statement from President Donald Trump:
I have been fully briefed on the terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport. May God Bless their souls. Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders. I am monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arise.
Best of Deadline
How to Watch The 67th Annual Grammy Awards Online And With Cable
'A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms': Everything We Know About The 'Game Of Thrones' Prequel, Including Plot, Premiere Date & Whether George R.R. Martin Is Involved
2025 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Oscars, Spirits, Grammys, Tonys, Guilds & More
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Miami Herald
5 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
‘Russia's Pearl Harbor' Fuels Fears Over Chinese Cargo Ships at US Ports
Sunday's Ukrainian drone ambush on a Russian airbase more than 3,000 miles from the front lines has intensified a growing debate among U.S. military analysts over the plausibility of a similar attack launched from Chinese merchant vessels docked at American ports. The scenario has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers and security analysts alike following confirmation that COSCO Shipping-China's state-owned shipping giant-operates across key U.S. ports, despite being designated by the Department of Defense as a Chinese military company. At issue is whether drones or cruise missiles could be hidden in shipping containers aboard these vessels, activated remotely or after offloading, and used in a preemptive strike. "This is a very plausible form of attack in the U.S.," said Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former U.S. Navy officer. "But the attack would need to overcome several challenges," he told Newsweek. "The drones need to get out of the container, and that's hard to control aboard a ship. A more feasible approach would be to deploy the drones from a container once it's offloaded and moved on a truck." Retired Navy commander Thomas Shugart, now a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, has voiced a more urgent warning. "It is becoming borderline-insane that we routinely allow ships owned and operated by DoD-designated Chinese military companies to sit in our ports with thousands of containers onboard and under their control," Shugart said in a conversation with Newsweek. Shugart said the concept isn't speculative-it mirrors Chinese military writings. "Their Science of Campaigns is full of references to 'sudden' and 'surprise' strikes," he said, referring to a core text that Chinese military officers are expected to study. "They explicitly discuss hitting first, especially against what they call the 'powerful entity,' which is clearly a reference to the United States." The concerns are not just theoretical. In January, members of the House Committee on Homeland Security asked the U.S. Coast Guard for a classified briefing, citing COSCO's access to "major U.S. ports" and warning of risks including "espionage, cyber intrusions, sabotage, and supply chain disruptions," according to a letter sent in January. Zak Kallenborn, a researcher of drone and asymmetric warfare, acknowledged the technical possibility but questioned the timing. "A similar Chinese drone attack is definitely plausible and worth worrying about," he told Newsweek. "However, a Chinese attack is unlikely to come completely out of the blue. If China were to do this, we'd likely already be at war." Still, the lessons from Ukraine's recent drone strike on Russian airfields linger heavily in the minds of U.S. analysts and war planners grappling with the warp-speed progress of battlefield technological advancements like drone warfare. The operation on Sunday exposed how even hardened military targets can be neutralized by low-cost drones-deep inside a nuclear-armed adversary's territory where an enemy's conventional air power would be difficult to penetrate. For some of these experts, it raised uncomfortable parallels to U.S. vulnerabilities. Shugart said the U.S. shouldn't assume distance offers safety. "We've hardened some overseas air bases," he said. "But we still park billion-dollar aircraft in the open on our own soil. That's a risk." According to a March report from the Atlantic Council, China has developed and demonstrated containerized missile and drone platforms that can be covertly transported aboard commercial vessels. The report warned these systems could enable Beijing to establish "a covert way to establish anti-access/area denial nodes near major maritime choke points." Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb demonstrated how swarms of inexpensive, off-the-shelf drones-slightly modified to carry explosives and smuggled in wooden containers to be deployed remotely-can inflict billions of dollars in damage on strategic military assets, including long-range bombers. The contrast has fueled criticism of more traditional defense approaches, such as President Donald Trump's proposed "Golden Dome" missile shield, which analysts say may be poorly matched to emerging low-cost threats. The regulatory environment surrounding drones is also a major factor in the growing risk, experts say. "We don't have a drone transportation and logistics system," military theorist John Robb wrote on X. "The FAA strangled it in the crib a decade ago. If the FCC had regulated the internet the way we've handled drones, we'd still be using AOL." Robb advocates for a national drone framework with built-in security measures: "Monitoring, kill switches, no-fly zones, hardware and software rules, maintenance requirements, and corporate certification." In Congress, lawmakers continue to press the Coast Guard to ensure more stringent vetting of foreign vessels, crew members and cargo. "The vetting process must be consistent and comprehensive across all U.S. ports," the Homeland Security Committee wrote in its January request. The committee also raised concerns about Chinese political officers allegedly embedded aboard COSCO vessels, which it argued underscores direct Chinese Communist Party influence over ostensibly commercial operations. For analysts like Clark, the technology is only part of the equation. The more pressing concern is readiness. "If China believes it can use relatively small drones to cause major damage, and we've done nothing to detect or deter it, that's a vulnerability we can't afford to ignore," he said. Related Articles Putin Ally Says Ukraine Operation 'Grounds for Nuclear Attack'Are the Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks Going Anywhere? | OpinionSteve Bannon Says Lindsey Graham Should Be Arrested Over Ukraine SupportWhat 'Russia's Pearl Harbor' Says About Trump's Golden Dome 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Wall Street Journal
14 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Watch: Ukraine Attacks Key Bridge Connecting Russia to Crimea
In recent weeks, both Russia and Ukraine have exchanged a flurry of attacks. Ukraine said it hit the Kerch bridge, which connects Crimea to Russia. Russian. Photo: Handout/Ukrainian Security Services/AFP via Getty Images
Los Angeles Times
24 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Russian rockets kill 4 in a Ukrainian city as Kyiv claims it damaged a key bridge
KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian rocket attack targeted the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday, killing at least four people and wounding 25, officials said. President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the assault, saying it underscored that Moscow has no intentions of halting the 3-year-old war. The attack came a day after direct peace talks in Istanbul made no progress on ending the fighting. Local authorities said the barrage of rockets struck apartment buildings and a medical facility in the center of Sumy. Meanwhile, Ukraine's secret services said they struck inside Russia again, two days after a spectacular Ukrainian drone attack on air bases deep inside the country. The Ukrainian Security Service, known by its acronym SBU, claimed it damaged the foundations of the Kerch Bridge linking Russia and illegally annexed Crimea — a key artery for Russian military supplies in the war. The SBU said it detonated 2,400 pounds of explosives on the seabed overnight, in an operation that took several months to set up. It was the third Ukrainian strike on the bridge since Russia's invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, the SBU said. 'The bridge is now effectively in an emergency condition,' the SBU claimed. The agency said no civilians were killed or injured in the operation. It was not possible to independently confirm those claims. Traffic across the Kerch Bridge was halted for three hours early Tuesday, but it reopened at 9 a.m., official Russian social media channels said. It closed for a second time at 3:20 p.m. and reopened again after two and a half hours. The Ukrainian president called the attack on Sumy a 'completely deliberate' strike on civilians. 'That's all you need to know about Russia's 'desire' to end this war,' the Ukrainian president wrote on social media. Zelensky appealed for global pressure and 'decisive action from the United States, Europe and everyone in the world who holds power.' Without it, he said, Russian President Vladimir Putin 'will not agree even to a ceasefire.' The war has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations, as well as tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides along the roughly 620-mile front line where the fighting grinds on despite U.S.-led efforts to broker a peace deal. Though Russia has a bigger army and more economic resources than Ukraine, the Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend damaged or destroyed more than 40 warplanes at air bases deep inside Russia, Ukrainian officials said, touting it as a serious blow to the Kremlin's strategic arsenal and military prestige. The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that the Ukrainian attack set several planes ablaze at two air bases but said the military repelled attempted attacks on three other air bases. Both Zelensky and Putin have been eager to show President Trump that they share his ambition to end the fighting — and avoid possible punitive measures from Washington. Ukraine has accepted a U.S.-proposed ceasefire, but the Kremlin effectively rejected it. Putin has made it clear that any peace settlement has to be on his terms. Delegations from the warring sides agreed Monday to swap dead and wounded troops, but their conditions for ending the war remained far apart. Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who now serves as deputy head of the country's Security Council chaired by Putin, indicated on Tuesday that there would be no let-up in Russia's invasion. 'The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else's delusional terms but for ensuring our swift victory and the complete destruction' of Ukraine's government, he said. In an apparent comment on the latest Ukrainian strikes, he declared that 'retribution is inevitable.' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to suggestions that a face-to-face meeting between Putin, Trump and Zelensky could break the deadlock, saying the possibility was 'unlikely in the near future.' Meanwhile, a senior Ukrainian delegation led by First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko has traveled to Washington for talks about defense, sanctions and postwar recovery, said Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukraine's presidential office. The delegation will meet with representatives from both major U.S. political parties, as well as with advisers to Trump, Yermak added. Ukrainians in Kyiv welcomed the strikes on Russian air bases but were gloomy about prospects for a peace agreement. 'Russia has invested too many resources in this war to just … stop for nothing,' said serviceman Oleh Nikolenko, 43. His wife, Anastasia Nikolenko, a 38-year-old designer, said diplomacy cannot stop the fighting. 'We need to show by force, by physical force, that we cannot be defeated,' she said. Russia recently expanded its attacks on Sumy and the Kharkiv region following Putin's promise to create a buffer zone along the border that might prevent long-range Ukrainian attacks from hitting Russian soil. Sumy, about 15 miles from the border, had a prewar population of around 250,000. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed its troops had taken the Ukrainian village of Andriivka, close to the border in the Sumy region. Ukraine made no immediate comment on the claim, which could not be independently verified. Russia also fired rocket artillery at Chystovodivka village in the Kharkiv region, killing two people and injuring three others, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Novikov writes for the Associated Press.
