Before Wednesday night’s crash between an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter, the United States had gone 16 years without a ghastly plane accident on its shores, it has been revealed.
The cause of the crash is still unknown as the investigation is just beginning. It was the first fatal crash of a commercial US airplane since 2009.
As safe as air travel has become, the US air travel system has been under increasing stress in recent years, with a well-established shortage of air traffic controllers throughout the nation, despite years of attempting to ramp up hiring. Congestion in many major metropolitan areas, especially around Washington DC, makes flying riskier than 16 crash-free years might suggest.
“I’m saddened, but I’m not surprised,” said Anthony Brickhouse, an aviation safety expert. “In the last two to three years, we’ve had so many close calls with commercial planes having near collisions in and near airport environments. If changes aren’t made, you eventually meet with tragedy.”
Newly appointed Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said Thursday that the midair collision Wednesday night between a regional American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., was “absolutely” preventable.
No one survived the collision, which claimed the lives of 64 passengers and crew onboard the commercial aircraft and three crew onboard the military helicopter.
During a morning news conference, Duffy said the skies over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport were clear and the final runway approach of Flight 5342, which departed from Wichita, Kansas, was “standard,” as was the flight pattern of the military helicopter.
“Obviously, it is not standard to have aircraft collide. I want to be clear on that,” Duffy said. “But prior to the collision, the flight paths that were being flown from the military and from American, that was not unusual for what happens in the D.C. airspace.”
Asked by reporters whether the crash was avoidable, Duffy said it “absolutely” was.
Duffy’s comments came after President Donald Trump posted a statement on his Truth Social platform, questioning why the control tower didn’t wave off the military helicopter from the flight path of the American Airlines jet.
“It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!,” Trump wrote.
In a press conference from the White House later Thursday morning, Trump called the collision a “tragedy of terrible proportions,” and also used the briefing to go on the offensive against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, claiming that the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) DEI hiring plan was to blame for the collision.
When pressed by ABC News’ Mary Bruce, Trump said that “we don’t know” what caused the crash and added that they’re still looking into it. He later said he concluded DEI policies were to blame because he has “common sense.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also spoke at the president’s press conference and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims. He also said the collision would be investigated.
“The military does dangerous things, it does routine things on a regular basis,” Hegseth said, in part. “Tragically, last night a mistake was made.”
Members of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is leading the investigation, said at a news conference Thursday afternoon that the agency has just started its probe and will not speculate on possible causes of the collision until the information collected is verified.
“We are all here because this is an all-hands-on-deck event,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, noting that all members of the board were at the news conference. “And we’re here to assure the American people that we are going to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. We are going to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy, looking at the facts.”
Homendy said that 50 NTSB investigators are being deployed to examine everything from the mechanics of the two aircraft involved to whether human error played a role in the incident.
Homendy added that earlier Thursday she briefed President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on the crash.
NTSB board member Todd Inman said during the press briefing that the board’s intention is to complete a preliminary report on the crash in 30 days. “Our mission is to understand not just what happened, but why it happened and to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again,” he said.
Inman also said that later Thursday, the NTSB will brief the families of those killed in the collision, adding that some were still making their way to Washington, D.C.
“The loss of life in an aviation accident is very unusual in the United States and our heartfelt sorrow goes out to everyone that’s affected. It affects us, it affects everyone around us,” an emotional Inman said. “We will find out what happened. We will do it factually and accurately.
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