On Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2025, American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter as the jet prepared to land at Washington D.C. Ronald Reagan National Airport. The crash killed all 60 passengers and four crew members aboard the airplane as well as the three soldiers on board the helicopter after the aircraft exploded in the sky and fell into the Potomac River.
There hasn’t been a more fatal aviation accident in the U.S. in more than two decades, nearly 16 years, than Wednesday’s, according to NPR.org It marks the worst incident since 2009 when Continental Flight 3407 crashed into a suburban home in Buffalo, New York, and killed its 45 passengers. The Jan. 30, 2025 crash is now officially known as one of the worst aviation accidents in U.S. History, according to AP News.
Investigators comprising the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are still examining the crash as it takes at least one year to do so. There have been 55 bodies recovered from the Potomac River that were victims of the crash, according to BBC News. However, investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days of the accident.
“This is a complex investigation,” said NTSB investigator Brice Banning. “There are a lot of pieces here. Our team is working hard to gather this data.”
Investigators are considering numerous factors for the cause of the aviation incident. They are questioning why the helicopter involved in the accident was on a training flight during a busy time of night for aircrafts. They are considering how it flew about 200 feet higher than it should have been when the crash occurred, according to CBS News. The FAA is additionally wondering if the air traffic controllers appropriately carried out their jobs, especially considering that there was only one worker managing the helicopter when there should have been two.
For months before the collision, numerous pilots and experts have developed a growing concern regarding an increase in close calls around the Reagan National Airport. Just a day before the Wednesday night crash, a landing jet had initiated a “go-around maneuver” due to a military helicopter nearby.
In a press conference on Thursday, Jan. 31 following the aviation collision, President Donald Trump openly blamed the helicopter pilots for the crash. He claimed that the FAA’s diverse hiring plan was the leading cause of poor air safety.
The FAA has implemented some parameters for aircrafts in response to the recent accident.
“The Federal Aviation Administration indefinitely barred most helicopters from using routes that run under or parallel to flight paths,” an official told AP News.
