American Airlines Flight 5342 with 60 passengers and four crew hit an Army helicopter near Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Wednesday night, sending the two aircraft into the Potomac River and killing all aboard in the deadliest U.S. air crash in more than two decades.
The crash around 9 p.m. threw one of the world’s most tightly controlled airspaces into chaos 3 miles (5 kilometers) south of the White House and U.S. Capitol. Officials are probing the cause Friday as they search the river.
More than 40 bodies have been pulled from the river, law enforcement officials told media on Friday. The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The regional jet out of Wichita, Kansas, was preparing to land and the UH-60 Black Hawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, carrying three soldiers, was on a training exercise, 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 jet to land. 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.
The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later, apparently telling the copter to wait for the jet to pass.
There was no reply and the aircraft collided.
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