ARLINGTON,Va (AP)– All 64 individuals aboard an American Airlines jet that collided with an Army helicopter were been afraid dead in what was most likely to be the most awful united state air travel catastrophe in practically a quarter century, authorities stated Thursday.
At the very least 28 bodies were drawn from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter obviously flew right into the course of the jet late Wednesday as it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, authorities stated. The airplane brought 60 guests and 4 team. Three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.
“We don’t believe there are any survivors,” stated John Donnelly, the fire principal in the country’s funding. “We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation.”
The plane was found upside-down in three sections in waist-deep water, and first responders were searching an area of the Potomac River as far south as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, roughly 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) south of the airport, Donnelly said. The helicopter wreckage was also found.
There was no immediate word on the cause of the collision, but officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kansas, with U.S. and Russian figure skaters and others aboard. It was preparing for a routine landing at the time of the collision.
“On final approach into Reagan National, it collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said. “At this time, we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the … aircraft.”
President Donald Trump was scheduled to talk about the crash later Thursday from the White House.
Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.
Inside Reagan National Airport, the mood was somber Thursday morning as stranded passengers waited for flights to resume, sidestepping camera crews and staring out the terminal’s windows at the Potomac, where recovery efforts were barely visible in the distance.
Aster Andemicael had been at the airport since Wednesday evening with her elderly father, who was flying to Indiana to visit family. She spent much of the long night thinking about the victims and their families.
“I’ve been crying since yesterday,” she said, her voice cracking. She recalled seeing a young woman frantically running through the airport around the time of the crash, possibly in search of a loved one who would never return.
“>“I pray for them,” she said. “This is devastating.”
Investigators will try to piece together the aircraft’s final moments before the collision, including its contact with air traffic controllers.
“I would just say that everyone who flies in American skies expects that we fly safely,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. “That when you depart an airport, you get to your destination. That didn’t happen last night, and I know that President Trump, his administration, the FAA, the DOT, we will not rest until we have answers for the families and for the flying public. You should be assured that when you fly, you’re safe.”
Reagan Airport was to reopen at 11 a.m. Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced.
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in”>“Can I guarantee the American flying public that the United States has the most safe and secure airspace in the world? And the answer to that is, absolutely yes, we do,” he said.
Authorities have ‘early indicators’ of what went wrong
The night was clear, the plane and helicopter were both in standard flight patterns and there was standard communication between the aircraft and the tower, Duffy said.
“We have early indicators of what happened here,” Duffy said, though he declined to elaborate pending an investigation.
It is not unusual to have a military aircraft flying the river and an aircraft landing at the airport, he said. Asked if the plane was aware that there was a helicopter in the area, Duffy said the helicopter was aware that there was a plane in the area.
Asked about Trump suggesting in an overnight social media post that the collision could have been prevented, Duffy said: “From what I’ve seen so far, do I think this was preventable? Absolutely.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not appear at the Thursday morning news conference. He was expected to brief reporters at the Pentagon later.
Likely the deadliest plane crash since November 2001
If everyone aboard the plane was killed, it would be the deadliest U.S. airline crash since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard.
The last major fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, including 45 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants. Another person on the ground also died, bringing the total death toll to 50. An investigation determined that the captain accidentally caused the plane to stall as it approached the airport in Buffalo.
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yf-1pe5jgt” > “>“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” U.S. Figure Skating said in a statement.
Two of those coaches were identified by the Kremlin as Russian figure skaters Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships and competed twice in the Olympics. The Skating Club of Boston lists them as coaches and their son, Maxim Naumov, is a competitive figure skater for the U.S.
Club CEO Doug Zeghibe described the group as highly talented, saying their loss would resonate through the skating community for years.
“Folks are just stunned by this,” Zeghibe said. “They are like family to us.”
