DC plane crash update: all 67 passengers feared dead, 28 bodies found

All 67 people onboard the American Airlines passenger aircraft as well as the US Army helicopter that collided mid-air on Wednesday are believed to be dead, officials said on Thursday, with rescue teams having already recovered 28 bodies.

An American Airlines regional jet, American Eagle Flight 5342, collided mid-air with a military Blackhawk helicopter near Washington, DC, last night in possibly one of the deadliest air disaster in the history of United States.

DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly, speaking at a Thursday morning press conference, confirmed that no survivors had been found and that emergency crews were now focusing on retrieving bodies and debris from the river.

“We are now at a point where we’re switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. At this point, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident,” he said at the conference.

By Thursday morning, 28 bodies had been pulled from the Potomac River, Donnelly said, and the next phase of the operation would be led by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Details of the crash

The crash occurred on Wednesday night when an American Airlines regional jet, American Eagle Flight 5342, collided midair with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter.

The collision took place just a few kilometers from the White House, sending both aircraft plummeting into the Potomac River.

According to American Airlines, Flight 5342, a Bombardier CRJ700, had 60 passengers and four crew members on board.

The flight had departed from Wichita and was operated by PSA Airlines, a subsidiary of American Airlines.

Images from the scene showed parts of the aircraft, including a wing and part of the fuselage, protruding from the river.

Three US Army personnel aboard the Black Hawk helicopter were also killed in the crash.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on social media that the Department of Defense and the Army would conduct a thorough investigation into the incident.

American Airlines CEO and Sean Duffy weigh on the crash

The cause of the collision remains unclear, but American Airlines CEO Robert Isom suggested that the Army helicopter may have been at fault.

“At this time, we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the PSA aircraft,” Isom said during a Thursday morning statement.

Isom also said that the pilot of the jet was experienced.

On the other hand, transportation secretary Sean Duffy, who was sworn in just a day before the crash, said that both aircraft were following a “standard flight pattern” at the time of the collision.

Duffy also said there had been no breakdown in communications between the two aircraft and the control tower.

According to The New York Times, officials said that initial information indicated little unusual about the moments leading up to the crash.

White House responds as Trump assigns blame

The tragedy poses an early challenge for the new Trump administration, which now faces its first major aviation disaster.

In addition to Duffy, the crash comes during Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s first week in office.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that Coast Guard resources had been deployed for search and recovery operations.

President Trump reacted to the disaster on social media website Truth Social, calling it “a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented.”

He later stated that he had been “fully briefed” on the crash but did not offer specifics on what he believed had gone wrong.

Worst US air disaster since 2009

Wednesday night’s crash is the deadliest aviation accident involving a commercial airliner in the United States since 2009, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed into a house outside Buffalo, New York.

That crash killed all 49 people on board, along with one person in the home.

The NTSB is expected to release preliminary findings in the coming days as investigators work to determine what led to the collision.

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