Sixty passengers and four crew members from the plane and three Black Hawk helicopter personnel are feared dead as a recovery mission is underway.
The plane collided with a helicopter just before it was scheduled to land. This is a developing story and will be updated.
Search efforts continue after an American Airlines plane from Wichita, with 64 people on board, collided with an Army helicopter near Washington, D.C., and crashed into the Potomac River.
American Eagle Flight 5342 en route from Wichita, Kansas (ICT), to Washington, D.C. (DCA) was involved in an accident at DCA,” the airline said in a statement.
This afternoon the NTSB held its first briefing on the crash saying this was a very quick and rapid impact. Since Wednesday night they have been dealing with difficult conditions. Despite that, the DC fire chief says he is confident the remains of everyone involved will be found.
Eighteen bodies were reportedly removed from the Potomac River following the Wednesday, Jan. 29, crash between an American Airlines regional passenger plane and a helicopter.
Authorities believe there are no survivors in the accident, which happened as a regional passenger jet was attempting to land Wednesday night at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Learn more about the path of American Airlines Flight 5342 and the Black Hawk helicopter that collided before 9 p.m. on Wednesday.
Residents and visitors were told to not touch or remove debris from the Potomac River, as the investigation into the midair D.C. plane crash remains ongoing.
Wednesday night’s crash of an American Airlines commuter plane in Washington could be one of the worst disasters for the Fort Worth-based airline in more than two decades.
The U.S. Army described the helicopter as a UH-60 Blackhawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The helicopter was on a training flight. Military aircraft frequently conduct training flights in and around the congested and heavily-restricted airspace around the nation’s capital for familiarization and continuity of government planning.