Bright light captured on cctv footage is moment of collision.
Credit: Kennedy Centre:
A passenger jet has collided with a helicopter on attempting to land at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport according to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
A PSA Airlines regional jet has collided midair with a UH-60 Black Hawk military helicopter carrying 3 soldiers while on approach to the runway. Flight 5342 which was operating for American Airlines, carrying 60 passengers and 4 crew, had departed from Wichita, Kansas, according to the FAA.
The pilot of the military helicopter had been warned about the incoming passenger plane by air traffic controllers, and said that he had seen it and panned to fly behind it, but it is believed that he confused another flight with the PSA incoming flight. The helicopter, which had taken off from the Western part of Washington DC minutes before and followed the Potomac River. It was listed as a PAT, or ‘Priority Air Transport’, suggesting it was carrying a senior leadership figure.
Air traffic controllers at the airport’s tower said they saw little else other than a fireball, while witnesses on the ground have spoken of a shower of sparks like a firework seconds before both vehicles plunged into the icy waters of the Potomac River.
Search and rescue operations are going on in the river and dozens of bodies have been seen being pulled out. All flights in and out of Ronald Reagan National Airport are currently halted or redirected.
The FAA have made a statement clarifying that the midair crash occurred around 9pm EST. It happened in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world. The president and vice-president were notified immediately and both have announced their condolences on Twitter.
Air crash investigators are on the scene with air traffic controllers attempting to piece together the final moments of both aircraft in some of the most tightly controlled airspace in the world.
This is the first commercial passenger airline crash that resulted in fatalities in the United States in over 15 years. There have been over two hundred million flights during that time.
