D.C. plane crash live updates: All 3 black boxes found, 67 dead after American Airlines jet collides with military helicopter

Yahoo

31-01-2025

An American Airlines plane collided with a military helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, killing 67 people. It was the deadliest air disaster in the United States since 2001.
The commercial flight from Wichita, Kan., carrying 60 passengers and four crew members was preparing to land at Reagan National Airport around 9 p.m. ET. At the same time, a Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers as part of a training mission was flying nearby, according to the Defense Department.
Both aircraft collided in midair before plummeting into the frigid river below. There were no survivors, officials said. More than 40 bodies have been recovered from the water, the Associated Press reported.
Two so-called black boxes — a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder — have been recovered from the plane, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday. At a press briefing Friday, the NTSB said the combined voice and flight data recorder on the Black Hawk had also been recovered. The recorders are being evaluated and will help reconstruct what happened before the crash.
Among those who died in the crash were figure skaters and their family members and coaches. According to U.S. Figure Skating, they were returning home from a development camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
During a Friday afternoon press briefing, NTSB member J. Todd Inman told reporters that he was confident that investigators would be able to recover the contents of two black boxes from American Airlines Flight 5342 and a third found in the wreckage of an Army Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the plane.
One of the two black boxes from the plane was a flight data recorder, Inman said, adding "That was actually in what we consider good condition."
"We have a high level of confidence that we will be able to get a full download in the very near future," Inman continued.
The voice recorder that was located in the cockpit "had water intrusion," Inman said. "That is not uncommon. It is not an unusual event for us to receive a recorder with water intrusion."
NTSB soaked both of the plane's recorders in ionized water overnight and the cockpit voice recorder was placed in a "vacuum oven in order to extract moisture," but Inman reiterated that investigators were confident they would be able to recover information from them.
After being located Friday, the Black Hawk's "combined cockpit voice recorder and digital flight data recorder" is also "safely at NTSB headquarters," Inman said, adding that investigators saw "no exterior damage that would indicate that it was compromised."
In the wake of Wednesday's crash, the Federal Aviation Administration began restricting helicopters on Friday from flying specific river routes around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a social media post that the move "will immediately help secure the airspace near Reagan Airport, ensuring the safety of airplane and helicopter traffic."
The U.S. Department of Transportation said the restriction does not include "helicopters entering this airspace for lifesaving medical support, active law enforcement, active air defense, or presidential transport helicopter missions that must operate in this restricted area."
The DOT also said "these restrictions will remain in place until the NTSB completes its preliminary investigation of the air carrier incident at which point it will be reviewed based on NTSB's report."
NEW: With the support of @POTUS and in consultation with the @SecDef, effective today, the @FAANews will restrict helicopter traffic around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport airport.Today's decision will immediately help secure the airspace near Reagan Airport, ensuring… pic.twitter.com/Oo6B9H8z8S
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) January 31, 2025
Two new video clips of Wednesday night's crash involving an American Airlines jet and a U.S. military helicopter offer a clearer picture of the tragic collision that killed 67 people.
The footage appears to show American Airlines Flight 5342 on its descent into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington as an Army Black Hawk helicopter travels straight into it, causing a massive explosion over the Potomac River. The footage was obtained by CNN and verified by NBC News.
A press briefing from the National Transportation Safety Board originally scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. ET has been pushed back to 5:30 p.m. ET, the agency said.
Speaking to reporters in Estonia on Friday, International Skating Union president Jae Youl Kim said that figure skaters, coaches and family members killed in the American Airlines jet crash will be honored at the the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Boston in late March.
'At the moment we want to focus on mourning those who lost their lives and also provide support for the ones who lost their loved ones," he said. "We will discuss with our counterparts in Boston what should be done to honor those who left us in this tragic way. One way to honor them is to make sure that we provide the greatest event, to show the respect.'
Kim made the announcement during the European championships in Tallinn, Estoniawhere several skaters have dedicated their programs to the crash victims.
"We are all saddened," Kim said. "But this is also just bringing the solidarity of the figure skating community together."
The U.S. Army has publicly identified two of the three soldiers who were aboard the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines commercial jet Wednesday night.
• Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O'Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Ga.:
Staff Sgt. O'Hara served as a UH-60 helicopter repairer (15T) in the regular Army from July 2014 to present day. He successfully deployed to Afghanistan from March 2017 to August 2017. His awards include Army Commendation Medal w/C Device, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal x4, Army Good Conduct Medal x3, National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal with campaign star, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon, NATO Medal, Aviation Badge and Senior Aviation Badge.
• Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Md.:
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Eaves, served in the U.S. Navy from August 2007 to September 2017, then transitioned to a UH-60 pilot for the regular Army from September 2017 to present day. His awards include Army Commendation Medal x3, Navy Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Navy Achievement Medal x3, Navy 'E' Ribbon x2, Navy Good Conduct Medal x3, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Armed Forces Service Medal, Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Navy & Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon and Army Aviator Badge.
O'Hara is "believed to be deceased pending positive identification," the Army said in a news release. His family, however, confirmed the soldier's death. Eaves's remains have not yet been recovered.
"At the request of the family, the name of the third Soldier will not be released at this time," the Army said, adding that their remains have also not yet been recovered.
The union that represents the nation's air traffic controllers refuted President Trump's suggestion that diversity, equity and inclusion hiring policies at the Federal Aviation Administration had been a factor in Wednesday night's crash near Reagan National Airport.
"Air traffic controllers earn the prestigious and elite status of being a fully certified professional controller after successfully completing a series of rigorous training milestones," Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said in a statement on Friday. "The standards to achieve certification are not based on race or gender."
During Trump's first term as president, the same hiring practices remained in place as those during the Obama administration. And they also did not alter the rigorous medical evaluations and training that prospective air traffic controllers undergo before being certified.
Disability employment law requires "that the person with a disability must be able to perform the essential functions of the job," Chai Feldblum, a disability lawyer and former commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, told NPR.
Terry Liercke, vice president and manager of Reagan National Airport, told reporters on Friday that the airport is operating at a reduced capacity as two of its three runways are closed due to the proximity to the site of recovery operations.
He said he anticipated that the two runways would be closed for about a week.
At a press briefing in Washington, D.C., on Friday afternoon, D.C. Fire Chief John Donnelly said that search crews recovered 41 bodies from the Potomac River.
Of those, 28 have been positively identified, Donnelly said. As of 6 a.m., next-of-kin notifications had been made to 18 families.
He said that recovery efforts are ongoing, and that dive teams are working in "targeted areas" to locate the rest of the 67 victims killed in Wednesday's midair collision.
Two U.S. Coast Guard cutters have joined the recovery efforts, Donnelly said, with more on the way.
Efforts to salvage the aircraft from the water, he said, would begin no later than Saturday afternoon.
Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will hold a media briefing at 4 p.m. ET on its investigation into the deadly midair collision between the American Airlines commercial jet and U.S. military helicopter. The briefing will be held in the lobby of Terminal 1 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Late Thursday, the NTSB said that investigators had recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder — also known as the "black boxes" — from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane, and that the recorders were transported to NTSB labs for evaluation.
NTSB investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane involved in yesterday's mid-air collision at DCA. The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation. pic.twitter.com/IHypR0Jh76
— NTSB Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) January 31, 2025
The father of a 29-year-old U.S. Army Black Hawk pilot who was killed in Wednesday's midair collision with an American Airlines jet told CBS News Friday that his son, Ryan O'Hara, loved flying over Washington, D.C., and never expressed concerns about its congested airspace.
Gary O'Hara said Ryan was assigned to Fort Belvoir in Virginia and lived in the Washington, D.C., area with his wife and 1-year-old son.
"I was worried when he was in Afghanistan," Gary O'Hara said. "You let your guard down … when he's on American soil."
When news of the collision broke Wednesday night, Gary O'Hara, who lives in Georgia, said his "heart just broke." He tried immediately to text his son, but the message wouldn't go through. He then spoke with his daughter-in-law, who was also fearing the worst.
The next morning, they were notified by the Army that Ryan was among the crew of three aboard the helicopter.
"It's really like your worst nightmare," Gary O'Hara said.
A boater who routinely patrols the Potomac River for an environmental group told the Associated Press that he found floating debris that appeared to be from the plane about 2 miles away from the crash site in shallow coves along the Maryland shore.
Dean Naujoks, a riverkeeper for the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance, said he recovered a piece of the interior wall, pages from a flight manual, a woman's sweater and what appeared to be the cushion from a pilot's seat, and turned the items — which were covered in jet fuel — over to the FBI.
'I'm thinking of the people these things belonged to and it's a punch to the gut," Naujoks said. "It's just a sad day on the river.'
American Airlines will retire the flight number 5342 following Wednesday's deadly crash, ABC News reports, which is common protocol in the wake of major aviation accidents.
Flight 5342, which was operated by American Airlines subsidiary PSA Airlines, was en route to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., from Wichita, Kan., when it collided with a military helicopter on Wednesday night and plunged into the Potomac River. All 67 people aboard the plane and helicopter were killed.
According to the American Airlines website, the nonstop ICT (Wichita's Eisenhower National Airport) to DCA (D.C.'s Reagan National) flight scheduled for Friday and Sunday evenings is listed as Flight 5677.
All 67 people who were aboard the American Airlines plane and Army helicopter are believed to be dead, officials have said.
Neither American Airlines nor U.S. aviation authorities have released an official list of the passengers and crew aboard the commercial flight, which originated in Wichita, Kan. But a number of them have been identified in media reports and by loved ones as figure skaters, their coaches and family members, who were returning from a development camp and the U.S. Figure Skating Championships that happened last week in Wichita.
Here are some of the passengers who have been identified so far.
Spencer Lane and his mom, Christine
'Spencer, in the best way possible, was a crazy kid,' Skating Club of Boston CEO Doug Zeghibe said. 'Highly talented, like incredibly talented. Has not been skating very long and rocketed to the top of the sport. Very fun, very cerebral, a good thinker.'
Coach Inna Volyanskaya
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by @innasskaters
Before becoming a coach 15 years ago, Volyanskaya was a skater who represented the Soviet Union at competitions in the 1980s.
Volyanskaya's ex-husband and fellow skating coach Ross Lansel told News 4 Northern Virginia that Volyanskaya was 'one of the best skaters I've ever seen.'
'Just knowing the impact she made to all the skaters and everyone just hurts my soul," he said. 'I know it's going to be so hard without her."
Flight attendant Ian Epstein
Epstein's wife, Debi, shared the news 'with a very heavy heart and extreme sadness' on Facebook Thursday morning.
'Ian Epstein was one of the flight attendants on American Airlines Flight 5342,' she wrote. 'Please pray for Ian and our family as we travel to DC.'
Click here to read more from Yahoo News about the identified victims.
The Federal Aviation Administration has indefinitely closed some routes used by helicopters near Reagan National Airport, the Associated Press reports, following this week's deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter.
"Some of the airspace has already been restricted due to ongoing search and recovery efforts over the crash site, but now the agency responsible for air traffic control is indefinitely barring most helicopters from using the low-to-the-ground routes that run under or parallel to the airport's flight paths," the AP report said, citing an unnamed official briefed on the matter.
Similarly, an FAA official on Friday told Reuters that the agency was "barring most helicopters from parts of two helicopter routes near the airport and only allowing police and medical helicopters in the area between the airport and nearby bridges."
The deadly collision between an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter outside Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night has put a spotlight on the airspace around Reagan National Airport.
And a Reuters review of incidents involving helicopters at Reagan airport reveals pilots had been raising alarm about near misses for decades.
"Out of 46 incidents flagged anonymously by pilots in the Aviation Safety Reporting System database, 26 cases involved near misses or recklessly close contact" with helicopters, Reuters reported. "One pilot complained it was his seventh near miss with a helicopter in 4 1/2 years flying into the airport."
Read more from Reuters: Near misses at Washington airport worried pilots well before fatal crash
Scott Hamilton teared up on NBC's Today show on Friday while reflecting on the figure skaters, coaches and family members who were killed in Wednesday's tragedy.
"It's been overwhelming," said Hamilton, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist figure skater turned TV commentator. "It's beyond the skating community. So many people see this tragedy and the loss of these brilliant young skaters that have poured their lives into building an identity in our sport."
Hamilton said he had just come from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kan., where he had seen many of the skaters and coaches who were on the ill-fated flight.
"I can't wrap my head around the last 36 hours," Hamilton said. "It's just been devastating. The loss is just beyond description, and my heart is shattered."
Search-team divers who have been working to recover bodies from the Potomac River after the deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jet and military helicopter will assist the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation Friday by conducting "additional searches to locate aircraft components" and "begin operations to salvage the aircraft," Washington, D.C.'s fire department said in a post on X.
The plane's two black boxes — the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder — have already been recovered, the NTSB said.
Appearing on Fox News on Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said authorities were still looking for the helicopter's black box recorder.
More than 40 bodies have now been recovered from the Potomac River, the Associated Press reported on Friday morning, citing a law enforcement official.
The American Airlines jet was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members when it collided with an Army helicopter with a crew of three while approaching Washington's Reagan National Airport Wednesday night.
There were no survivors.
Investigators continue to probe Wednesday night's fatal crash between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., while search teams scour the Potomac River for remains. The aviation disaster claimed the lives of 67 people, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes in U.S. history.
Here's the latest:
At least 28 bodies have been recovered from the Potomac River.
Two black box data recorders aboard the plane have been recovered, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
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.
Residents of Wichita, Kan., where Flight 5342 originated, held a prayer vigil to remember those killed.
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.
During a Friday afternoon press briefing, NTSB member J. Todd Inman told reporters that he was confident that investigators would be able to recover the contents of two black boxes from American Airlines Flight 5342 and a third found in the wreckage of an Army Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the plane.
One of the two black boxes from the plane was a flight data recorder, Inman said, adding "That was actually in what we consider good condition."
"We have a high level of confidence that we will be able to get a full download in the very near future," Inman continued.
The voice recorder that was located in the cockpit "had water intrusion," Inman said. "That is not uncommon. It is not an unusual event for us to receive a recorder with water intrusion."
NTSB soaked both of the plane's recorders in ionized water overnight and the cockpit voice recorder was placed in a "vacuum oven in order to extract moisture," but Inman reiterated that investigators were confident they would be able to recover information from them.
After being located Friday, the Black Hawk's "combined cockpit voice recorder and digital flight data recorder" is also "safely at NTSB headquarters," Inman said, adding that investigators saw "no exterior damage that would indicate that it was compromised."
In the wake of Wednesday's crash, the Federal Aviation Administration began restricting helicopters on Friday from flying specific river routes around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a social media post that the move "will immediately help secure the airspace near Reagan Airport, ensuring the safety of airplane and helicopter traffic."
The U.S. Department of Transportation said the restriction does not include "helicopters entering this airspace for lifesaving medical support, active law enforcement, active air defense, or presidential transport helicopter missions that must operate in this restricted area."
The DOT also said "these restrictions will remain in place until the NTSB completes its preliminary investigation of the air carrier incident at which point it will be reviewed based on NTSB's report."
NEW: With the support of @POTUS and in consultation with the @SecDef, effective today, the @FAANews will restrict helicopter traffic around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport airport.Today's decision will immediately help secure the airspace near Reagan Airport, ensuring… pic.twitter.com/Oo6B9H8z8S
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) January 31, 2025
Two new video clips of Wednesday night's crash involving an American Airlines jet and a U.S. military helicopter offer a clearer picture of the tragic collision that killed 67 people.
The footage appears to show American Airlines Flight 5342 on its descent into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington as an Army Black Hawk helicopter travels straight into it, causing a massive explosion over the Potomac River. The footage was obtained by CNN and verified by NBC News.
A press briefing from the National Transportation Safety Board originally scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. ET has been pushed back to 5:30 p.m. ET, the agency said.
Speaking to reporters in Estonia on Friday, International Skating Union president Jae Youl Kim said that figure skaters, coaches and family members killed in the American Airlines jet crash will be honored at the the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Boston in late March.
'At the moment we want to focus on mourning those who lost their lives and also provide support for the ones who lost their loved ones," he said. "We will discuss with our counterparts in Boston what should be done to honor those who left us in this tragic way. One way to honor them is to make sure that we provide the greatest event, to show the respect.'
Kim made the announcement during the European championships in Tallinn, Estoniawhere several skaters have dedicated their programs to the crash victims.
"We are all saddened," Kim said. "But this is also just bringing the solidarity of the figure skating community together."
The U.S. Army has publicly identified two of the three soldiers who were aboard the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines commercial jet Wednesday night.
• Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O'Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Ga.:
Staff Sgt. O'Hara served as a UH-60 helicopter repairer (15T) in the regular Army from July 2014 to present day. He successfully deployed to Afghanistan from March 2017 to August 2017. His awards include Army Commendation Medal w/C Device, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal x4, Army Good Conduct Medal x3, National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal with campaign star, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon, NATO Medal, Aviation Badge and Senior Aviation Badge.
• Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Md.:
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Eaves, served in the U.S. Navy from August 2007 to September 2017, then transitioned to a UH-60 pilot for the regular Army from September 2017 to present day. His awards include Army Commendation Medal x3, Navy Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Navy Achievement Medal x3, Navy 'E' Ribbon x2, Navy Good Conduct Medal x3, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Armed Forces Service Medal, Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Navy & Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon and Army Aviator Badge.
O'Hara is "believed to be deceased pending positive identification," the Army said in a news release. His family, however, confirmed the soldier's death. Eaves's remains have not yet been recovered.
"At the request of the family, the name of the third Soldier will not be released at this time," the Army said, adding that their remains have also not yet been recovered.
The union that represents the nation's air traffic controllers refuted President Trump's suggestion that diversity, equity and inclusion hiring policies at the Federal Aviation Administration had been a factor in Wednesday night's crash near Reagan National Airport.
"Air traffic controllers earn the prestigious and elite status of being a fully certified professional controller after successfully completing a series of rigorous training milestones," Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said in a statement on Friday. "The standards to achieve certification are not based on race or gender."
During Trump's first term as president, the same hiring practices remained in place as those during the Obama administration. And they also did not alter the rigorous medical evaluations and training that prospective air traffic controllers undergo before being certified.
Disability employment law requires "that the person with a disability must be able to perform the essential functions of the job," Chai Feldblum, a disability lawyer and former commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, told NPR.
Terry Liercke, vice president and manager of Reagan National Airport, told reporters on Friday that the airport is operating at a reduced capacity as two of its three runways are closed due to the proximity to the site of recovery operations.
He said he anticipated that the two runways would be closed for about a week.
At a press briefing in Washington, D.C., on Friday afternoon, D.C. Fire Chief John Donnelly said that search crews recovered 41 bodies from the Potomac River.
Of those, 28 have been positively identified, Donnelly said. As of 6 a.m., next-of-kin notifications had been made to 18 families.
He said that recovery efforts are ongoing, and that dive teams are working in "targeted areas" to locate the rest of the 67 victims killed in Wednesday's midair collision.
Two U.S. Coast Guard cutters have joined the recovery efforts, Donnelly said, with more on the way.
Efforts to salvage the aircraft from the water, he said, would begin no later than Saturday afternoon.
Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will hold a media briefing at 4 p.m. ET on its investigation into the deadly midair collision between the American Airlines commercial jet and U.S. military helicopter. The briefing will be held in the lobby of Terminal 1 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Late Thursday, the NTSB said that investigators had recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder — also known as the "black boxes" — from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane, and that the recorders were transported to NTSB labs for evaluation.
NTSB investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane involved in yesterday's mid-air collision at DCA. The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation. pic.twitter.com/IHypR0Jh76
— NTSB Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) January 31, 2025
The father of a 29-year-old U.S. Army Black Hawk pilot who was killed in Wednesday's midair collision with an American Airlines jet told CBS News Friday that his son, Ryan O'Hara, loved flying over Washington, D.C., and never expressed concerns about its congested airspace.
Gary O'Hara said Ryan was assigned to Fort Belvoir in Virginia and lived in the Washington, D.C., area with his wife and 1-year-old son.
"I was worried when he was in Afghanistan," Gary O'Hara said. "You let your guard down … when he's on American soil."
When news of the collision broke Wednesday night, Gary O'Hara, who lives in Georgia, said his "heart just broke." He tried immediately to text his son, but the message wouldn't go through. He then spoke with his daughter-in-law, who was also fearing the worst.
The next morning, they were notified by the Army that Ryan was among the crew of three aboard the helicopter.
"It's really like your worst nightmare," Gary O'Hara said.
A boater who routinely patrols the Potomac River for an environmental group told the Associated Press that he found floating debris that appeared to be from the plane about 2 miles away from the crash site in shallow coves along the Maryland shore.
Dean Naujoks, a riverkeeper for the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance, said he recovered a piece of the interior wall, pages from a flight manual, a woman's sweater and what appeared to be the cushion from a pilot's seat, and turned the items — which were covered in jet fuel — over to the FBI.
'I'm thinking of the people these things belonged to and it's a punch to the gut," Naujoks said. "It's just a sad day on the river.'
American Airlines will retire the flight number 5342 following Wednesday's deadly crash, ABC News reports, which is common protocol in the wake of major aviation accidents.
Flight 5342, which was operated by American Airlines subsidiary PSA Airlines, was en route to Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., from Wichita, Kan., when it collided with a military helicopter on Wednesday night and plunged into the Potomac River. All 67 people aboard the plane and helicopter were killed.
According to the American Airlines website, the nonstop ICT (Wichita's Eisenhower National Airport) to DCA (D.C.'s Reagan National) flight scheduled for Friday and Sunday evenings is listed as Flight 5677.
All 67 people who were aboard the American Airlines plane and Army helicopter are believed to be dead, officials have said.
Neither American Airlines nor U.S. aviation authorities have released an official list of the passengers and crew aboard the commercial flight, which originated in Wichita, Kan. But a number of them have been identified in media reports and by loved ones as figure skaters, their coaches and family members, who were returning from a development camp and the U.S. Figure Skating Championships that happened last week in Wichita.
Here are some of the passengers who have been identified so far.
Spencer Lane and his mom, Christine
'Spencer, in the best way possible, was a crazy kid,' Skating Club of Boston CEO Doug Zeghibe said. 'Highly talented, like incredibly talented. Has not been skating very long and rocketed to the top of the sport. Very fun, very cerebral, a good thinker.'
Coach Inna Volyanskaya
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by @innasskaters
Before becoming a coach 15 years ago, Volyanskaya was a skater who represented the Soviet Union at competitions in the 1980s.
Volyanskaya's ex-husband and fellow skating coach Ross Lansel told News 4 Northern Virginia that Volyanskaya was 'one of the best skaters I've ever seen.'
'Just knowing the impact she made to all the skaters and everyone just hurts my soul," he said. 'I know it's going to be so hard without her."
Flight attendant Ian Epstein
Epstein's wife, Debi, shared the news 'with a very heavy heart and extreme sadness' on Facebook Thursday morning.
'Ian Epstein was one of the flight attendants on American Airlines Flight 5342,' she wrote. 'Please pray for Ian and our family as we travel to DC.'
Click here to read more from Yahoo News about the identified victims.
The Federal Aviation Administration has indefinitely closed some routes used by helicopters near Reagan National Airport, the Associated Press reports, following this week's deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter.
"Some of the airspace has already been restricted due to ongoing search and recovery efforts over the crash site, but now the agency responsible for air traffic control is indefinitely barring most helicopters from using the low-to-the-ground routes that run under or parallel to the airport's flight paths," the AP report said, citing an unnamed official briefed on the matter.
Similarly, an FAA official on Friday told Reuters that the agency was "barring most helicopters from parts of two helicopter routes near the airport and only allowing police and medical helicopters in the area between the airport and nearby bridges."
The deadly collision between an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter outside Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night has put a spotlight on the airspace around Reagan National Airport.
And a Reuters review of incidents involving helicopters at Reagan airport reveals pilots had been raising alarm about near misses for decades.
"Out of 46 incidents flagged anonymously by pilots in the Aviation Safety Reporting System database, 26 cases involved near misses or recklessly close contact" with helicopters, Reuters reported. "One pilot complained it was his seventh near miss with a helicopter in 4 1/2 years flying into the airport."
Read more from Reuters: Near misses at Washington airport worried pilots well before fatal crash
Scott Hamilton teared up on NBC's Today show on Friday while reflecting on the figure skaters, coaches and family members who were killed in Wednesday's tragedy.
"It's been overwhelming," said Hamilton, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist figure skater turned TV commentator. "It's beyond the skating community. So many people see this tragedy and the loss of these brilliant young skaters that have poured their lives into building an identity in our sport."
Hamilton said he had just come from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kan., where he had seen many of the skaters and coaches who were on the ill-fated flight.
"I can't wrap my head around the last 36 hours," Hamilton said. "It's just been devastating. The loss is just beyond description, and my heart is shattered."
Search-team divers who have been working to recover bodies from the Potomac River after the deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jet and military helicopter will assist the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation Friday by conducting "additional searches to locate aircraft components" and "begin operations to salvage the aircraft," Washington, D.C.'s fire department said in a post on X.
The plane's two black boxes — the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder — have already been recovered, the NTSB said.
Appearing on Fox News on Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said authorities were still looking for the helicopter's black box recorder.
More than 40 bodies have now been recovered from the Potomac River, the Associated Press reported on Friday morning, citing a law enforcement official.
The American Airlines jet was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members when it collided with an Army helicopter with a crew of three while approaching Washington's Reagan National Airport Wednesday night.
There were no survivors.
Investigators continue to probe Wednesday night's fatal crash between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., while search teams scour the Potomac River for remains. The aviation disaster claimed the lives of 67 people, making it one of the deadliest plane crashes in U.S. history.
Here's the latest:
At least 28 bodies have been recovered from the Potomac River.
Two black box data recorders aboard the plane have been recovered, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
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.
Residents of Wichita, Kan., where Flight 5342 originated, held a prayer vigil to remember those killed.
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.