Mid-air crash near Reagan Airport kills 67 people, deadliest US air disaster in almost quarter century

At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River in Washington

Arlington: A midair collision between an Army helicopter and a jetliner killed all 67 people aboard the two aircraft, officials said Thursday, as they scrutinised the actions of the military pilot in the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.

At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter apparently flew into the path of the American Airlines regional jet late Wednesday while it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, just across the river from Washington, officials said. The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members, and three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.

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President Donald Trump told at White House news conference that no one survived. “We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” said John Donnelly, the fire chief in the nation’s capital.

The crash occurred before 9 pm in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over 3 miles south of the White House and the Capitol. Air crash investigations can take months, and federal investigators told reporters they would not speculate on the cause.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane, agency spokesperson Peter Knudson said. They were at the agency’s labs for evaluation.

The plane was found upside-down in three sections in waist-deep water, and first responders were searching miles of the Potomac, Donnelly said. The helicopter wreckage was also found. Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage. American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the plane was making a normal approach when “the military aircraft came into the path” of the jet.