Sixty-seven people are dead or presumed dead after a commercial plane crashed with a military helicopter over the Potomac River Wednesday night.
American Airlines Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk around 9 p.m. while preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. There were 64 on board the plane and three in the helicopter. At least 28 bodies have been recovered.
American and Russian figure skaters were among those on board the airplane.
“At this time we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the … aircraft,” said American Airlines CEO Robert Isom.
According to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, both the plane and helicopter were in standard flight patterns and maintained communication with the tower.
President Donald Trump took to Truth Social and called the crash “a bad situation that looks like it could have been prevented.”
“To back up what the president said, what I’ve seen so far—do I think this was preventable? Absolutely,” Duffy told reporters.
This is likely the deadliest plane crash since 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed in Belle Harbor, New York and killed all 260 passengers on board.
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