The lives lost in the D.C. plane-helicopter crash

Where the aircraft collided

American Eagle Flight 5342 had 60 passengers and four crew members aboard as the plane collided with an Army helicopter carrying three crew members, a crash with no survivors just outside Reagan National Airport whose horror reverberated across the country.

As family members and friends grieve, they also shared memories of the lives they now mourn.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) in a statement called President Donald Trump “unfit to lead during moments of crisis” after Trump baselessly suggested that DEI hiring policies at the Federal Aviation Administration, including programs to recruit people with disabilities, may have been related to the collision. As investigations continue, National Transportation Safety Board officials say it is too early to draw conclusions about the causes of the collision.

What we know about the crash

Police have pulled 28 bodies from the water as of Thursday morning, according to officials, who believe all passengers and crew aboard the airplane and helicopter were killed.

Investigators confirmed Thursday night that they had recovered a cockpit voice recorder and a flight-data recorder from the airliner, devices often referred to as black boxes, which would undergo analysis.

Here’s what we know about the crash so far.

  • American Airlines said 60 passengers and four crew members were aboard American Eagle Flight 5342 from Wichita. The flight — a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet operated by American Airlines subsidiary PSA Airlines — was set to land in Washington at 8:57 p.m., according to aircraft tracker FlightAware. All are believed to have died in the crash.
  • The plane and an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that was on a training flight collided at 8:47 p.m., according to publicly available flight-tracking data.
  • Staffing levels were “not normal” inside Reagan National Airport’s control tower at the time of the collision, with no single controller dedicated to managing helicopter traffic, according to an air traffic safety report described to The Washington Post.
  • The military helicopter was found upside down in the water and the plane had broken into pieces, according to a D.C. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

    What we know about the people presumed dead in the D.C. plane crash

    Officials believe there are no survivors after an American Airlines passenger plane from Wichita and an Army helicopter collided over the Potomac River on Wednesday.

    Neither the airline nor aviation authorities had published an official list identifying the commercial flight’s 60 passengers and four crew members by Thursday evening. The three soldiers aboard the helicopter also remained unnamed.

    Investigators recovered a cockpit voice recorder and a flight-data recorder — devices often referred to as black boxes — from the American Airlines plane involved in the crash, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson told The Washington Post on Thursday night.

    NTSB member Todd Inman had said at a news conference Thursday afternoon that the helicopter probably contained recording devices and that his board or the Defense Department would analyze them when they were recovered.

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