The American Airlines plane and an Army helicopter collided Wednesday night at Ronald Reagan National Airport in D.C.
Photo Courtesy of AP
WASHINGTON — Police boats scoured the Potomac River on Friday morning, slowly searching the shoreline as part of the investigation into the tragic midair collision that killed 67 people, marking the deadliest aviation disaster in the United States in nearly 25 years.
Over 40 bodies had been recovered from the river by Friday, according to two law enforcement sources who spoke to The Associated Press. These officials, not authorized to share specifics of the investigation, requested anonymity.
Crews worked under overcast skies with rain expected throughout the day. Meanwhile, air traffic at Reagan National Airport began to return to normal, after flights had been delayed and canceled in the aftermath of the crash.
Investigators have already retrieved the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the American Airlines jet that collided with an Army helicopter Wednesday night as it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, near Washington, D.C. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Hommendy called the crash an “all-hands-on-deck event,” as officials examine numerous factors surrounding the collision.
All passengers and crew on both the American Airlines plane and the Army helicopter perished in the crash, and authorities are now looking into the military pilot’s actions and whether air traffic control procedures were followed. Investigators are especially focused on the sequence of events that led the helicopter into the path of the American Airlines jet.
Typically, air crash investigations take 12 to 18 months, and officials said they would not speculate on the cause at this stage.
Authorities are still searching for the helicopter’s black box recorder, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking Friday on Fox News. Investigators are also scrutinizing factors such as the helicopter’s altitude and whether the pilot was using night vision goggles at the time of the crash.
In response to the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed an indefinite ban on most helicopters from using low-level flight paths that run under or parallel to the airport’s approach and departure routes, an official confirmed to the AP. This was not a complete ban, but rather a restriction aimed at minimizing risk in the wake of the tragedy.
Military helicopters routinely conduct such flights around Washington, D.C., to familiarize pilots with critical routes, particularly in the event of a national crisis that could require relocating key officials.
“You need to train as you fight,” Hegseth said. “But we also need to mitigate the risks while conducting this training. We must be prepared to respond at a moment’s notice, day or night.”
The American Airlines flight carried 60 passengers and four crew members, while the Army Black Hawk helicopter was carrying three soldiers.
According to an FAA report obtained by the AP, a single air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating both helicopter and commercial aircraft traffic when the collision occurred. Typically, these duties are split between two controllers, but at Reagan National, they are often combined during slower hours after 9:30 p.m. The tower supervisor had directed the early combination of roles on Wednesday night.
“The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the FAA report said.
A person familiar with the matter clarified that the staffing levels were consistent with regular procedures, noting that the positions are sometimes combined when controllers step away for breaks or during shift changes.
The FAA has long faced challenges with a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Flight conditions were clear when the American Airlines jet arrived from Wichita, Kansas, carrying passengers that included a group of young figure skaters, their parents and coaches, as well as four union steamfitters from the Washington area.
The crew of the Army helicopter was described as “very experienced” by Jonathan Koziol, the chief of staff for Army aviation, who emphasized that both pilots were familiar with the congested airspace around D.C., having flown the route many times before, including at night.
The helicopter’s maximum allowable altitude at the time of the crash was 200 feet (about 60 meters), Koziol said. It was unclear whether the helicopter exceeded that limit, but Hegseth indicated that altitude could have been a factor.
Koziol stressed that investigators would need to analyze flight data before drawing conclusions about the altitude.
President Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social on Friday morning, said the helicopter was “flying too high” at the time of the crash.
“It was far above the 200-foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???” Trump wrote, while also questioning the helicopter pilot’s actions and making comments about diversity initiatives impacting air safety.
Flights at Reagan National Airport resumed around midday Thursday.
Wednesday’s crash marked the deadliest in the U.S. since November 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area in Belle Harbor, New York, shortly after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard and five on the ground.
The most recent major fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airliner occurred in 2009, near Buffalo, New York, when a Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane went down, killing all 50 people aboard, plus one person on the ground.
Experts continue to stress that air travel remains overwhelmingly safe. According to the National Safety Council, Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash, while airplane fatalities are so rare that the odds are too small to calculate.
Nevertheless, the airspace around Reagan National presents a challenge even for experienced pilots. They must navigate not only other commercial aircraft but also military flights and restricted zones around sensitive government sites.
In fact, just 24 hours before the fatal collision, a different regional jet had to abort its landing at Reagan National after air traffic controllers advised the pilots of a military helicopter nearby. The jet landed safely minutes later.
