American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army helicopter collided in midair near Washington D.C.'s Reagan National Wednesday night, sending the two aircraft into the Potomac River and killing all 67 aboard in the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001.
The cause of the crash 3 miles (5 kilometers) south of the White House and U.S. Capitol was under investigation Monday as crews recovered wreckage from the river.
Crews have identified 55 bodies. Authorities are confident all will be found, Washington, D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly Sr. said.
The crash
The regional jet out of Wichita, Kansas carried 60 passengers and four crew and was preparing to land. The UH-60 Black Hawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia was on a training exercise and carried three soldiers, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Skies were clear.
A few minutes before the Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-700 series twin-engine jet was to land, air traffic controllers asked Flight 5342 if it could use a shorter runway. The pilots agreed. Controllers cleared the landing. Flight-tracking sites show the plane adjusted its approach to the new runway.
Less than 30 seconds before the collision, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the plane in sight. The military pilot responded yes.
Moments later the controller made another call to the helicopter, apparently telling the copter to wait for the jet to pass.
There was no reply and the aircraft collided.
The recovery
Crews were seen aboard a vessel with a crane in the river early Monday and by around midday they had moved a large piece of the jet. Portions of the two aircraft will be loaded onto flatbed trucks and taken to a hangar.
More than 300 people participated in the recovery effort at some moments, officials said. Two Navy barges lifted wreckage from the river.
Divers and salvage workers adhere to strict protocols and stop moving debris if a body is found because the dignified recovery of remains takes precedence, Col. Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said.
The investigation
Preliminary data showed conflicting readings about the altitudes of the two aircraft.
Data from the jet’s flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet (99 meters), plus or minus 25 feet (7.6 meters), National Transportation Safety Board officials told reporters. Data in the control tower showed the Black Hawk helicopter at 200 feet (61 meters) — its maximum allowed altitude — at the time.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators have the plane’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, along with the helicopter’s black box, and are working to download the information inside all three.
Investigators said that about a second before impact, the jet’s flight recorder showed a change in its pitch. But they did not say whether that change in angle meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive maneuver to avoid the crash.
The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet (732 meters) short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the Potomac, and the plane was found upside-down in three sections in waist-deep water. The helicopter’s wreckage was also found in the river.
Army aviation chief of staff Jonathan Koziol said the helicopter crew was “very experienced” and familiar with the congested flying around Washington.
Full NTSB investigations typically take a year or more. Investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.
The victims
Among the passengers were members of the Skating Club of Bostonwho were returning from a development camp that followed the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
Victims included teenage figure skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, the teens' mothers and two Russian-born coaches, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won a 1994 world championship in pairs skating.
The victims also included a group of hunters returning from a guided trip in Kansas, nine students and parents from Fairfax County, Virginia, schools and four steamfitters members of a steamfitters' local in suburban Maryland and two Chinese nationals.
The plane captain was Jonathan Campos, 34, according to multiple media reports.
The Army identified the soldiers on the helicopter as Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach of Durham, North Carolina; Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland. O'Hara was the crew chief and Eaves and Lobach were pilots.
Families at the site
Families of the victims visited the crash site on Sunday.
They were taken in buses with a police escort to the Potomac River bank near where the two aircraft came to rest after colliding.
