How did Washington DC plane crash unfold? A visual guide
An American Airlines jet with 60 passengers and four crew members onboard collided with an army helicopter carrying three soldiers while landing at Reagan National airport in Washington DC on Wednesday evening.
Footage from a security camera at the airport shows the moment of the collision.
Both aircraft fell into the Potomac River. Emergency responders said they did not believe there were any survivors.
American Eagle Flight 5342 was operated by PSA Airlines, an Ohio-based regional subsidiary of American Airlines. The plane was a CRJ700, the airline said, from a line of regional jets made by Canada's Bombardier, later sold to Mitsubishi.
It was flying from Wichita, Kansas, and its passengers included ice skaters, family and coaches returning from events in the city.
The helicopter was a Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk. It had been on a military training flight and was operating out of Davison Army Airfield in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, south of Washington DC.
A few minutes before the jet was due to land, air traffic controllers asked the pilots if they could land on a shorter runway than the north-south runway it was originally heading for, and the pilots agreed. Controllers cleared the jet to land and the plane adjusted its approach to the new runway, as seen in this view:
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, calling on its pilot to 'pass behind' the jet. There was no reply. Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
The Washington region has three major airports, but Reagan National, which lies on the Potomac, is by far the closest to the capital.
The crash occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the US. The airspace is extremely busy, with military and commercial craft ferrying thousands of passengers, including top government and military officials. This satellite image highlight's the airport's proximity to the centre of DC.
Because of the short length of the runways at Reagan National, more than 90% of flights use its main north-south runway, making it the busiest runway in the US, with more than 800 daily takeoffs and landings.
There have been several near-miss incidents at Reagan National that have sparked alarm, including a near-collision in May 2024 between an American Airlines jet and a small aeroplane, and one in April 2024 between Southwest and JetBlue planes.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
9 hours ago
- The Independent
It's not just the noise: Cicadas are overrunning an amusement park and are taking the blame for a car crash
Cicadas are back, and their reemergence is causing chaos beyond the typical noise they emit. Brood XIV emergence will be largely concentrated in Kentucky and Tennessee, but Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, along with parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York will also see the insects. In Ohio, visitors at Kings Island — a theme park near Cincinnati — have shared videos of the cicadas taking over trees and spreading out across the park's grounds. One TikTok video by user Summer Balser shows her family doing their best to step around the insects as they traverse the park. Dr Gene Kritsky from Mount St Joseph University told WCPO that park goers should just try to enjoy to novelty of the experience as there's nothing that can be done to stop the insects. And, he added another piece of advice: "when you're on the ride, keep your mouth closed." That said, cicadas grossing visitors out at a theme park is better than the bugs wrecking someone's car - which was the case in Blue Ash, Ohio. 'We're all well aware that these pesky cicadas don't respect personal space, including while driving,' the town's police department wrote in a social media post. They detailed how a cicada flew into a car window, startled the driver and caused them to lose control. The post contains a photo of a damaged car flipped on its side. Thankfully, no one was hurt in the crash. 'It may be a good idea to keep the windows up for the next several weeks. As you can see, a cicada attack can be dangerous,' the department wrote, noting that the insect assailant fled the scene of the crime. Outside of causing car wrecks and being generally gross, loud, and annoying, cicadas are harmless to humans. The U.S. has seven broods of periodical cicadas, which emerge in 13- and 17-year cycles, and while the insects are mostly benign, they can cause damage to small trees or shrubs if too many of them concentrate on one plant, according to the University of Connecticut. The university advises orchard and nursery owners to avoid planting young trees or shrubs in the years preceding an emergence of periodical cicadas due to the threat they pose to the young plants. If one does have young trees and shrubs, the best way to protect them from the bugs is to physically cover them with a screening material to limit the insects' access to the plant. Pesticides are generally not effective due to the sheer number of the insects when they emerge.
Scottish Sun
10 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Heartbreaking final photo of family of five smiling moments before takeoff on doomed Air India jet
A FAMILY shared a heartbreaking selfie ahead on board the ill-fated flight that crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad today. The family of five from Rajasthan, India, posted the happy picture ahead of the shocking tragedy. Advertisement 5 A doctor couple and their three young children 5 Emergency personnel and other people gather near damaged property, at the site where an Air India plane crashed Credit: Reuters 5 Air India Flight AI171 crashed on Thursday on the way to London Credit: AP 5 The flight is seen on CCTV exploding in a fireball Credit: ViralPress Udaipur-based doctor Komi Vyas had just quit her job to join her husband Prateek Joshi in London along with their three kids. The picture shows Joshi and Vyas with beaming smiles along with their children on board the ill-fated flight. Joshi had moved to London some time ago, and the rest of the family was on their way to join him, NDTV has reported. Follow The Sun's live blog for all the latest updates Advertisement read more in world news FARE-WELL! Shocking moment passenger hurls herself out of moving Uber to avoid £1.40 fare "Komi had quit her job recently to join her husband in London," a spokesperson for Pacific Hospital where she worked said. Neighbours have told NDTV that Joshi's father is a well respected radiologist in the city. Joshi's cousin Nayan said: "They left for Ahmedabad yesterday to take the flight to London. "Prateek had come here just two days ago to take his wife and children with him. Advertisement "Several other members of both families went to see them off." Vyas' brother told NDTV the couple had been married for 10 years. Plane crash survivor's relative reveals the dad was 'fine' after miraculously escaping doomed jet Air India Flight AI171 had been heading to London Gatwick when it crashed into a hostel used by doctors on Thursday. There were 242 people on board, including 53 Brits and 11 children. Advertisement More than 200 bodies have been recovered so far, while one Brit is understood to have survived. Haunting footage of the plane's final moments shows before it crashed into a fireball. 5 Smoke seen billowing after the crash Credit: AFP A formal investigation into the crash has now been opened by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau. Advertisement Captain Saurabh Bhatnagar, a former senior pilot, told NDTV: "The take-off was perfect and just, I believe, short of taking the gear up, the aircraft started descending, which can happen only in case the engine loses power or the aircraft stops developing lift. "Obviously, the investigation will reveal the exact reason." Brit Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, is so far understood to be the only surviving passenger. Incredible footage shows him walking away from the plane's wreckage almost unscathed. Advertisement Speaking in Hindi, he says: "I just got out of the plane, it exploded." Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X: "The tragedy in Ahmedabad has stunned and saddened us. It is heartbreaking beyond words. "In this sad hour, my thoughts are with everyone affected by it. "Have been in touch with ministers and authorities who are working to assist those affected." Advertisement Air India has confirmed that 241 of the 242 people aboard flight AI171 have died following the crash. The airline adding it "offers its deepest condolences to the families of the deceased".
Daily Mail
14 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Why so many planes are crashing right now, pilot reveals
An Air India flight bound for London Gatwick has crashed shortly after taking flight from the northwestern Indian state of Gujarat, carrying 242 passengers and crew. Here, we're republishing a piece from February by former commercial pilot and crash investigator Shawn Pruchnicki, which exposes the dangers within the aviation industry in 2025. Another day – another near miss. It's a sickening reminder of the American Airlines regional crash with a military helicopter in DC that killed 67 last month – and of a spate of other accidents these past weeks. As a former commercial pilot, crash investigator and expert in accident causation, I have seen the safety buffer that took decades to build steadily eroded in recent years. It started with declining standards at Boeing – turning out planes with defects, such as the Boeing 737 Max, that led to the deaths of 346 people in two crashes in less than six months in October 2018 and March 2019. Last January, a door-sized panel blew out in a 737 Max mid-flight with near-catastrophic consequences. But the truth is the experts have been raising the alarm for years. We have watched in horror as planes come within a few hundred feet of each other – on the runway or in the air. If planes come within a couple of miles of each other, we start to worry. Any distance noted in feet counts as within a hair's breadth of disaster! Pictured: Hearing on "Examining Boeing's Broken Safety Culture: Firsthand Accounts," at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on April 17, 2024 I had a near miss experience myself when flying as a pilot for Delta Connection. I had just landed at JFK and a 747 was coming into land on a parallel runway. The control tower asked the pilot if he would be able to stop short of our location and he said that he could which meant they cleared us to cross the runway. We had a gut feeling that this pilot – who possibly wasn't familiar with the airport - couldn't do what he said and so we decided not to cross and to stay where we were. A few moments later the 747 blasted through right in front of us, hurtling past at a high rate of speed. If we'd crossed the runway as directed, there would have been a collision. So, I'm sorry to say that when news broke on January 29 that a commercial airliner had been struck by a Black Hawk helicopter in the skies above DC's Reagan International Airport, I wasn't surprised. I have long feared that it wasn't a matter of 'if' such a catastrophe would happen but 'where' and 'when.' A key contributing factor to the problems we are experiencing in our airspace system is the chronic shortage of air traffic controllers. I feel for these controllers. They are over-worked and over-stressed – they know that if they make a mistake someone could die. That's not to say that planes are falling out of the skies. Air travel is still the safest mode of transport we have. But, unfortunately, several dramatic incidents in the last year have rattled public confidence in safety. Within 48 hours of the DC crash, a small medical jet crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood killing all six on board and claiming the life of another on the ground - another awful and dramatic moment. On February 6, a small, chartered aircraft carrying 10 crashed in Alaska. Nine days later, a Delta Connection flight from Minneapolis with 76 passengers and 4 crew collapsed as it struck the runway, flipped and caught fire, losing its tail and a wing. Mercifully, everyone survived. I don't think that either the Philadelphia or the Alaska crashes would have made national and international news headlines had they not happened in such close proximity to the two crashes involving commercial flights. But its undeniable that the buffer of safety in which we once felt so secure has been eroded. Another valid concern is that regional and national airlines are hiring pilots and promoting them through the ranks with less experience than ever before. I'm not aware of any studies that focus on the impact of limited experience on flight safety, but the truth is that, without positive measures to address the problems in our skies, accidents will keep happening and more frequently. We need more qualified candidates in the pipeline for air traffic controllers. When the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommends changes in the wake of their incident investigations they must be implemented. If the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needs more funding to make this happen then they must be given it. We need to continue to develop and invest in technology that will help pilots and air traffic controllers do their jobs – not to replace them but to assist them. Make no mistake there is still a pretty good safety buffer in place in our skies but it's shrinking, and we need to act now if we want to stop it from shrinking further. Shawn Pruchnicki is an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University in the College of Engineering. He was a Delta connection pilot for 10 years and trained in accident investigation at the NTSB Academy. He has testified to the US Senate on the current Boeing safety culture and manufacturing problems and his research into aviation safety has been published including by NASA and the FAA.
