Washington: A commercial American Eagle plane about to land at the Reagan National Airport collided with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter Wednesday night, in one of the worst aviation disasters in recent US history.
“Both aircraft crashed instantly and were immediately submerged into the icy waters of the Potomac. (A) real tragedy. The massive search and rescue mission was underway throughout the night, leveraging every asset at our disposal… The work has now shifted to a recovery mission. Sadly, there are no survivors,” US President Donald Trump told reporters at a White House news conference.
The incident happened just before 9 pm Wednesday, he said. An American Airlines regional jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew collided with an Army Blackhawk helicopter carrying three military service members over the Potomac River in Washington, DC while on final approach to Reagan National Airport.
The American Eagle plane with 60 passengers and four crew was coming from Wichita in Kansas. The Black Hawk helicopter had three soldiers.
Washington DC Fire Chief John Donnelly told reporters Thursday morning that the rescue teams so far have recovered 27 bodies from the plane and one body from the helicopter.
Trump said there were nationals from other countries, including Russia, who are being notified.
“We have a Russia contingent, some very talented people, unfortunately, were on that plane, very, very, very sorry about that,” he said, adding that the US is in touch with Russia to transfer these bodies to their near and dear ones.
“There were a couple of others. We’re going to be announcing it in about an hour. We have some very specific information. We’re calling the countries. We’ve spoken to most of them, but there were some other countries represented,” Trump said.
“We are one family and today we are all heartbroken we’re all searching for answers and say that icy Potomac was a cold, night cold water. We’re all overcome with the grief for many who have so tragically perished will no longer be with us together,” he said.
“We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas,” said the president as he blamed the previous Obama and the Biden administration for not taking talented people in the FAA.
“I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary, you remember that. Only the highest aptitude, have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers,” he said.
“And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first, Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse,” said the president.
Trump said as per his common sense there was an elevation issue with the helicopter that led to the crash.
“There’s never going to be a tragedy if you’re at a different elevation for whatever reason they were at the same elevation and also from the American Airlines standard. He’s along the track that every plane is along. You say what was a helicopter doing in that track. It’s very sad, but visually somebody should have been able to see and taken that helicopter out of play and they should have been at a different height,” Trump said.
PTI
