Washington: All 64 people aboard an American Airlines plane are presumed to have died when it collided midair with a small aircraft (Helicopter) near Reagan National Airport outside Washington, DC DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said that it is not expected that anyone survived.
Previous reports by law enforcement said no survivors would be found in the river. The regional jet — American Airlines Flight 5342 — had 60 passengers and four crew members aboard when it took off from Wichita, Kansas. They had been approaching the airport when it crashed into a US Army Black Hawk helicopter on a training mission, which led to the confirmed deaths of three soldiers on the aircraft.
According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, the airport was busy during the collision, with 858 flights scheduled to arrive and depart Reagan National Airport on Wednesday. About 19 planes in the air were diverted to nearby Dulles International Airport, about 20 miles from Reagan National, following the crash.
President Donald Trump said on Twitter that he had been “fully briefed on this tragic accident” and tweeted, “May God Bless the souls of the passengers.”
It was not immediately clear how many people might be aboard the military helicopter, which was on a training flight and was approaching an airport runway when the regional jet, departing Wichita, Kansas, hit it midair around 9 p.m. EST, the Federal Aviation Administration said. It occurred in some of the most heavily guarded airspace in the world, about 3.3 miles south of the White House and Capitol.
The confirmation pushed investigators closer to reconstructing the final minutes of the doomed aircraft, including contact with air traffic controllers and the passenger jet losing altitude as the collision happened.
The radio transponder data indicated that American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound for Reagan National at about 400 feet altitude and 140 miles an hour when it rapidly lost altitude over the Potomac River. The Bombardier CRJ-701 is a twin-engine regional jet made in Canada in 2004 and, pending configuration, can hold a maximum of 70 passengers.