All passengers dead
Sad certainty after crash: all occupants dead
According to the authorities, all 67 occupants of the two planes died in a plane crash in the US capital Washington. US President Donald Trump has now confirmed this and used the accident for political attacks ...
So far, 27 passengers from the American Airlines plane and one person from the helicopter have been recovered dead. Work will continue to find all the bodies, said fire chief John Donnelly.
On Wednesday evening, a passenger plane with 64 people on board collided with a US military helicopter on its approach to land near Ronald Reagan Airport (DCA) in Washington. It is not yet clear how the collision occurred. Both aircraft crashed into the water. There were three passengers in the military helicopter, according to US media reports. Boats and divers searched for survivors in the ice-cold water overnight - but to no avail.
Airport to reopen today
The airport should reopen on Thursday. "It's safe," said Jack Potter from the Washington Metropolitan Area Airport Authority. The recovery work being carried out on the site was taking place in the water. Air traffic would therefore resume at 11 a.m. (local time).
According to the US Department of Defense, the helicopter was on a training flight. It is unclear why the military aircraft got into the flight path of the passenger plane, said the head of the airline American Airlines, Robert Isom.
According to official information, there were no abnormalities before the collision. "Everything was completely normal before the crash," said US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Anyone who lives in Washington regularly sees "military helicopters flying up and down the river". It was a clear night with good visibility. The low temperatures made the work of the rescue teams more difficult - in the past few days they were well below freezing, and it only got noticeably warmer at the beginning of the week.
Figure skaters also on board
According to the US Figure Skating Association, around 15 of its athletes were on board the American Airlines regional jet, which was coming from Wichita in the state of Kansas. Athletes from Russia were also on the plane, Russian state media reported. Russia has since expressed its condolences to the relatives of its citizens. The former world figure skating champions, Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, were on board.
Helicopter crew knew about plane
A webcam at the Kennedy Center in Washington showed an explosion in the air over the river at 9.47 p.m. (local time). A burning and rapidly descending aircraft could then be seen. Radio communications between the tower and the helicopter showed that the crew knew that the aircraft was in the vicinity. Divers have since pulled one of the two flight recorders, the so-called black box, out of the Potomac, CBS reported. This box collects data and also records radio traffic and communication in the cockpit.
People gathered at Reagan Airport waiting for news about the fate of their loved ones. Hamaad Raza told a local radio station that his wife had written him a message saying that she would be landing in 20 minutes. His reply could no longer be fully transmitted to her cell phone. "That's when I realized something was wrong."
Trump uses misfortune for political attacks
Trump wrote on his Truth Social portal that the helicopter had flown directly towards the aircraft over a longer period of time. "It's a clear night, the lights of the plane were on, why didn't the helicopter go up or down or turn?" The tower should have told the crew of the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the aircraft. "This is a bad situation that apparently should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!"
He has since confirmed that there were no survivors. Air traffic control in Washington had issued a warning too late. However, he did not blame the air traffic controller, said the US President. There were only things that could be called into question. "For me, safety comes first. For Obama, Biden and the Democrats, politics comes first," he said of his predecessors.
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