Search and rescue teams work in the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River, with the Capitol dome in the background, as seen from Virginia, U.S., Jan. 30, 2025.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
WASHINGTON — How an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with American Airlines jetliner in a deadly crash over the Potomac River on Wednesday night is still unknown, but key questions are emerging, including about the altitude of the military helicopter.
Crash investigators recovered a flight recorder from the Sikorsky H-60 helicopter, adding to evidence they will comb through, which already includes interviews with air traffic controllers, including the one on duty at the time of the crash, and the two recorders from the airplane, National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said Friday.
Barges are en route to lift the large pieces of the CRJ-700 from the Potomac River on Saturday, Inman said at a briefing.
All 64 people on American Flight 5342 and the three aboard the helicopter were killed in the fireball collision near the Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, marking the deadliest U.S. air crash since 2001.
Forty-one bodies have been recovered from the crash site, Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said at a press conference Friday. Of those, 28 have been positively identified.
“We have in aviation what’s called a ‘Swiss cheese approach,’ wherein if something fails, a backup should catch it, multiple layers of redundancy,” Inman said. “It’s been a very long time since we’ve had a major aviation incident in the United States and that’s why it’s one of the safest forms of transportation in the country.”
The PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ-700 aircraft was flying at about 300 feet on final approach into Reagan National’s Runway 33 shortly before 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday when it collided with the Black Hawk helicopter.
PSA Airlines is one of American’s subsidiaries that flies regional routes, flights marketed as American Eagle.
Emergency personnel work near the site of the crash, with the U.S. Capitol in the background, after American Eagle flight 5342 collided with a Black Hawk helicopter while approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and crashed in the Potomac River, U.S. January 30, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the helicopter was on an annual proficiency training flight.
According to Federal Aviation Administration rules, helicopters, which regularly cross through and around Washington, between military bases, the Pentagon and other locations, must fly in the area close to the airport at a maximum of 200 feet.
“In D.C., it’s kind of a unique environment,” Inman said at a briefing Thursday. He noted that there are helicopter zones, or tracks, in Washington. “This one was transitioning from track one to four as part of their normal procedure. If you live in D.C., you see a lot of helicopters going down into this area. So there’s a very well-defined system.”
The FAA will restrict helicopter traffic around the Reagan National Airport area, with some exceptions for medical evacuation and law enforcement operations, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said on X Friday.
The airspace is some of the most congested in the country and Reagan National says its main runway is the busiest in the U.S.
While the investigation is ongoing, two out of three runways are closed at the airport because of their proximity to the crash area. Terry Liercke, vice president and airport manager, told the press Friday that he expects those closures could last for about a week.
Officials at the airport said more than 100 flights had been canceled Friday, citing the runway closures and bad weather.
“As you turn to align with the runway, your concentration is on the flight path to get on the runway quickly and get the airplane stopped,” said John Cox, a retired airline pilot and aviation safety consultant.
The NTSB is leading the investigation into the collision that ended in a fireball. The agency said it is still gathering information and that it is too early to draw conclusions.
“It’s not that we don’t have information. We do have information,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. “We have substantial amounts of information. We need to verify information. We need to take our time to make sure it is accurate.”
The NTSB also recovered flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the passenger jet. The boxes were taken to NTSB labs for evaluation, the agency said.
An NTSB investigator works on the black box of American Eagle flight 5342, which was involved in a collision with a Black Hawk helicopter, at an unknown location in this undated handout image released on January 30, 2025.
NTSB | Via Reuters
President Donald Trump on Friday wrote on Truth Social that the helicopter “was flying too high, by a lot. It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”
Hegseth made a similar statement at a White House briefing Thursday.
“Tragically, last night a mistake was made,” he said. “There was some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating at the DoD and Army level.”
Both statements were unusual in the wake of a crash and the early stages of an airline accident investigation.
The accident ends a decade-and-a-half period of air safety in the U.S., which hasn’t seen a fatal commercial crash since 2009, even though passenger traffic has increased by more than 35% to records. That crash prompted a host of stricter pilot training and rest standards.
Shortages of air traffic controllers has been a concern for years, and a spate of close calls at U.S. airports have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators.
(EDITORS NOTE: Image contains graphic content) In this U.S. Coast Guard handout, the Coast Guard investigates aircraft wreckage on the Potomac River on Jan. 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles | U.S. Coast Guard | Handout | Getty Images
Staffing at Reagan National the night of the crash wasn’t normal for the amount of traffic and time of day on the night of the crash, according to a preliminary FAA safety report on the collision, NBC News reported on Thursday.
Citing a source, NBC said the airport tower usually has a controller who focuses on helicopter traffic, though FAA guidelines allow for that position to be combined with another controller’s position, so one controller controls both airplanes and helicopters. The FAA didn’t respond to a request for comment on the report.
NBC News reported on Friday, citing a source familiar with the investigation that a supervisor at the Reagan National tower let a controller leave their shift early.
Inman said on Friday that investigators will look back at air traffic controllers’ past 72 hours or even weeks.
“We’ll look at their training, their hiring, everything, what they probably ate that day,” he said. “But it is not one point that tells us everything. It’s layered into a lot of other information that’s very critical.”