What we know so far about the aircraft collision near Washington D.C.
A collision between an American Airlines jetliner and an Army helicopter near Washington D.C. killed everyone on both aircraft on the evening of Jan. 29. It is among the country's deadliest aviation disasters since the 9/11 attacks.
American outlets reported that the two aircraft plummeted into the Potomac River, where at least 28 bodies were pulled from its icy waters. Officials believe there were likely no survivors.
Here's what we know so far about the incident.
How did the collision happen?
The jetliner, a Bombardier CRJ700, departed from Wichita in Kansas while the helicopter, a Sikorsky H-60 that belonged to B Company 12 Aviation Battalion, took off from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
At around 9 p.m., the jetliner was about to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport when the Black Hawk helicopter flew into its path.
According to the Associated Press, Flight 5342 was at about 400 feet (122 meters) and a speed of about 140 mph (225 kph) when it rapidly lost altitude over Potomac, based on its radio transponder data.
A few minutes before the crash, air traffic controllers directed the jet to a shorter runway, prompting it to adjust its approach.
Less than 30 seconds before the collision, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if the arriving jetliner was on its sight.
A crew member confirmed and requested “visual separation," letting it fly closer than what's probably allowed had the pilots not seen the jetliner. Controllers approved the request.
But seconds later, the jetliner and the helicopter collided.
The jetliner broke into several pieces before sinking into the river, while the helicopter fell upside down into the waters.
How many victims are there?
All 67 individuals aboard were killed in the collision.
The jetliner carried 60 passengers and four crew members, while the helicopter carried three soldiers.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said passengers on the plane had included “families from our region, Kansas, and across the country."
Passengers also included figure skaters, who went to Wichita for a development camp hosted by U.S. Figure Skating, the American governing body for the sport.
US Figure Skating said that aside from the athletes, including two young skaters, Jinna Han (13) and Spencer Lane (16), coaches, and family members were also on the flight.
So were Russian citizens, including former world champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov.
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, said the soldiers in the helicopter were a "fairly experienced crew."
What do witnesses say about the collision?
Ari Schulman told NBC Washington that he saw the plane crash while driving on the George Washington Parkway, which runs by the airport.
"You can always see these planes lined up to land. I always look at them when I’m driving home because it’s just a really interesting, kind of an elegant sight,” Schulman said.
Things initially looked normal until he saw the plane, roughly 150 feet in the air, bank hard to the right with "streams of sparks" running underneath and illuminating its belly.
Schulman said “it looked very, very wrong," as a plane's underside shouldn't have been visible in the dark.
“It looked to me like a giant Roman candle, sparks shooting from the head of the plane down to the tail," Schulman said. "I saw that for about two seconds."
Schulman even thought about whether he had hallucinated the crash until he saw emergency vehicles.
Jimmy Mazeo, meanwhile, was having dinner with his girlfriend at a park near the airport when he saw the incident. He recalled seeing what looked like a "white flare" in the sky.
"We thought they were shooting stars," he said, adding that he didn't "think much of it" until he, too, saw the emergency services arriving at the scene.
Looking back, he said planes approaching the airport seemed to have been flying in "irregular patterns."
What did President Donald Trump say?
On the heels of the crash, President Donald Trump held a press conference, saying the country was "in mourning" during "an hour of anguish."
"We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas," Trump said.
Without proof, Trump suggested that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)'s hiring of more diverse employees during the Joe Biden and Barack Obama administrations led to the collision, according to Reuters.
"The FAA diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing," he said.
Trump claimed the FAA wanted people "with severe disabilities, the most underrepresented segment of the workforce, and they want them in and they want them - they can be air traffic controllers."
"Air traffic controllers have to be at the highest level of genius," he added.
A former FAA official told Reuters that air traffic controllers undergo rigorous mental and physical tests before getting hired.
Were there similar incidents before?
The U.S. has also experienced other plane accidents, including the 1961 crash of Sabena Flight 548, which tragically claimed the lives of the entire U.S. figure skating team en route to the World Championships in Prague.
The last major plane crash in the U.S. occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York, resulting in 50 fatalities, while the deadliest crash happened in 2001. In that incident, an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area in Belle Harbor, New York, killing all 260 people on board.
