US authorities said on Thursday it was not yet clear why a regional jet crashed into a US Army helicopter at a Washington airport, killing 67 people in the deadliest U.S. air disaster in more than 20 years.
President Donald Trump, without providing evidence, said that federal diversity efforts could have been a factor, reiterating a theme that has become a focus of his presidency. Rights groups and Democrats accused him of politicizing the disaster.
The investigation into the crash in the nation's capital has just begun. The American Airlines Bombardier jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided with the Army Black Hawk helicopter and crashed into the Potomac River as it prepared to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night.
The names of all the victims have not yet been released, but they included a number of promising young figure skaters and people from Kansas, where the flight originated. Senator Maria Cantwell said that the dead on the plane included citizens from Russia, the Philippines and Germany.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators said they would have a preliminary report within 30 days. Investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane, NTSB said.
Search and rescue teams work near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, in the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River, in Arlington, Virginia, US, January 30, 2025.
Photo credit: Reuters
The agency has begun collecting wreckage, including portions of the helicopter, and is storing it at a hangar at Reagan National. Washington's fire and emergency department said its divers had searched all accessible areas and would conduct additional searches to locate aircraft components on Friday.
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said both aircraft had been flying standard flight patterns on Wednesday and there had been no breakdown in communication.
"Everything was routine up to the point of the accident," Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin told Reuters. The airport is located just across the river from Washington in Virginia.
At the White House, Trump criticized the helicopter pilots and suggested air traffic controllers were to blame.
"We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas," he said.
Radio communications showed that air traffic controllers alerted the helicopter about the approaching jet and ordered it to change course.
One controller rather than two was handling local plane and helicopter traffic on Wednesday night at Reagan National, a situation deemed "not normal" but considered adequate for lower volumes of traffic, according to a person briefed on the matter.
The decision to combine duties in the evening is not uncommon, the source said. The New York Times first reported the "not normal" designation.
A shortage of air traffic controllers in the United States in recent years has spurred safety concerns. At several facilities, controllers work mandatory overtime and six-day work weeks to cover shortages. The Federal Aviation Administration has about 3,000 fewer controllers than it says it needs.
Airspace is frequently crowded in the US capital region, home to three commercial airports and several major military facilities, and officials have raised concerns about busy runways at Reagan National Airport. Several near-miss incidents at the airport have sparked alarm, including a near-collision in May 2024.
Trump accused his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden of lowering hiring standards and suggested the Federal Aviation Administration's diversity push could have weakened its capabilities.
Asked if the crash was caused by diversity hiring, he said: "It just could have been."
The Trump administration has not provided any proof to back these assertions, and there is no evidence that efforts to make the federal workforce more diverse have compromised air safety.
Trump has moved quickly to quash federal diversity initiatives since taking office on Jan. 20, drawing criticism from rights advocates who fear he is rolling back progress the United States has made to overcome its history of discrimination.
"The President has made his decision to put politics over people abundantly clear as he uses the highest office in the land to sow hatred rooted in falsehoods instead of providing us with the leadership we need and deserve,” Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP civil rights group, said in a statement.
Trump cited FAA policies stating that physical and mental disabilities would not on their own disqualify applicants from a controller's position. Those policies were in place throughout Trump's initial 2017-2021 White House term, according to aides to Biden's transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
Buttigieg called Trump's remarks despicable. "As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying," he said on social media.
The air traffic control at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is pictured, in the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River, with the Capitol dome in the background, as seen from Virginia, US, January 30, 2025.
Photo credit: Reuters
Trump's remarks contrasted sharply with those of other officials, who said there was no immediate indication why the crash took place.
American Airlines AAL.O CEO Robert Isom said the pilot of the American Eagle Flight 5342 had about six years of flying experience. The Bombardier CRJ-700 jet was operated by PSA Airlines, a regional subsidiary.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the helicopter was flown by a "fairly experienced crew" of three soldiers who were wearing night-vision goggles on an annual training flight. Officials said they were grounding other flights from the Army unit involved in the crash and would reevaluate training exercises in the region.
Air traffic control recordings appear to capture the final attempted communications with the helicopter, call sign PAT25, before it collided with the jet.
"PAT25, do you have a CRJ in sight? PAT25, pass behind the CRJ," an air traffic controller says at 8:47 p.m. ET (0147 GMT) on Wednesday, according to a recording on liveatc.net.
Seconds later, another aircraft calls in to air traffic control, saying, "Tower, did you see that?" - apparently referring to the crash. An air traffic controller then redirects planes heading to runway 33 to go around.
"I just saw a fireball and then it was just gone. I haven't seen anything since they hit the river," an air traffic controller says.
