Mid-air crash near Reagan Airport: Jet had 64 people aboard

No word on casualties, search-and-rescue operation in Potomac River on

Washington: A jet with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard collided Wednesday with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River.

There was no immediate word on casualties or the cause of the collision, but all takeoffs and landings from the airport near Washington were halted as helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in search of survivors.

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Inflatable rescue boats were launched into the Potomac River from a point near the airport along the George Washington Parkway, just north of the airport.

President Donald Trump said he had been “fully briefed on this terrible accident” and, referring to the passengers, added, “May God Bless their souls.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said the midair crash occurred around 9 pm EST when a regional jet that had departed from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military Blackhawk helicopter while on approach to an airport runway.

It occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over three miles south of the White House and the Capitol.

American Airlines flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 400 feet and a speed of about 140 miles per hour when it suffered a rapid loss of altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from its radio transponder.

The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet was manufactured in 2004 and can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.

A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33.

Flight tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway. Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asks the helicopter if it has the arriving plane in sight.

The controller makes another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that the two aircraft collide. The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.