Disaster American Airlines Flight Collides With Blackhawk Helicopter Over DC - Several videos shared online showed footage of the collision and the aftermath of the crash.

An American Airlines passenger plane crashed into the Potomac River after colliding midair with a black hawk helicopter over Ronald Reagan International Airport in Washington, D.C., the Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday (January 29) via CNN.

Several videos shared online showed footage of the collision and the aftermath of the crash.

BREAKING: American Airlines Flight 5342 has collided with a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The military aircraft, identified as PAT25, is believed to be a Priority Air Transport mission, typically designated for VIP transport operations.

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[RodgerDodger]

Wikipedo has provided a list of all of those who participated in the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
I wonder how many more of them were on the plane?

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It appears to be 14 participants in the Skating event. 6 from the Boston Skate club. 2 teenage skaters, 2 coaches 2 mothers.

Also for those of us prone to binge watching Air Crash Investigation shows, we all know Greg Fief. The retired longtime senior NTSB Investigator. Here are his observations on this.

Fuck that, start poaching from Europe first. Offer big signing bonuses to any English speaking ATC over yonder to jump ship, with a bonus gun license and Smith and Wesson.

That gets us hundreds of out of work drunk Russian Pilots. The last thing the American Aviation industry needs is a massive influx of Slav's.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Special mention goes to this young man, Maxim Naumov. Who had to wake up this morning without his parents.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

ATC is brutal. High stress, high education requirements, high training requirements, government pay.

I looked at doing it briefly, and I think even then I was already too old(31 or younger to apply) but it really doesn't have a lot of upside. Especially compared to being an Instagram Influencer.

The government pay is good, you get great benefits and get to retire early with a much better than average pension. You also get a pretty wide choice of where ever you’d like to live.

It is super high-stress, high-pressure which is why you get to retire earlier than normal and have to train young.

Most ATCs come from the military, there are only so many spots leftover every year after military ATC applicants are accepted and it’s pretty competitive to get in.

The recent DEI debacle was really one of the worst-nightmare scenario, stupid DEI implementations. How to force more minorities into ATC jobs because the white guys always dominated the top scores that got the non-military spots available. Absolutely infuriating to exclude the best candidates in a field where decisions can cost lives. There are plenty of other federal jobs that POCs can do poorly and not kill anyone in the process.

Good thing the federal govt doesn’t oversee the hiring of commercial airline pilots.

Special mention goes to this young man, Maxim Naumov. Who had to wake up this morning without his parents.
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I believe he was at the event but had taken an earlier plane so by chance did not die along with his parents (who were former Olympic skaters, now coaches). Absolutely horrific. He is obviously is a competitive skater too so I can’t imagine how close he was to his parents, working and training along side of them (and probably friends with many others who died in the crash).

There was a post from another skater upset he got turned away at the gate due to his dog, which couldn’t fly with him. He ended up having to rent a car and start a 14 hour drive home…imagine grumbling about this awful 14 hour drive you are being forced to make only to start hearing reports about the plane crash.

 

[AllieKat]

"The military does dangerous things, it does routine things on the regular basis. Tragically, last night, a mistake was made," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says about the deadly midair collision near Reagan National Airport, calling it "some sort of an elevation issue."

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Man is it nice to have actual adults back in charge.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

I'm baffled that the transportation head is a cast member from Real World Boston.

 

[Non-breath oblige]

https://x.com/Ericperrytv/status/1885010993266209185 (https://archive.ph/CRu5V)

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

so it's looking like human error now on the helo's pilots part

he was too high and looking at the wrong plane when talking with the ATC

In some ways that...better I guess? No big conspiracy, no black ops or suicide pact just a person who made a bad call at the worst possible time resulting in a tragedy.

 

[the printer is outo fink]

Skating sisters Alydia (11), Everly (14), and their parents Donna and Peter Livingston of Asburn, Virginia were confirmed to have been on AA5342. It's their Instagram account that a lot of the post-camp photos that have been shared today are from.

 

[The Nothingness]

WaPo: "Trump baselessly criticizes DEI in D.C. plane crash; 67 feared dead"

You don't hate them enough.

 

[Desu Mountain]

"The military does dangerous things, it does routine things on the regular basis. Tragically, last night, a mistake was made," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says about the deadly midair collision near Reagan National Airport, calling it "some sort of an elevation issue."

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So when Trump asked why the helicopter didn't just fly under the plane he hit the nail on the head and everyone who called him stupid for asking it was actually a retard?

 

[Kiska]

There are a huge number of questionable airports around the world. Ones that were built during or before WW2. That long ago exceeded their ability to safely grow with the aviation industry. But are kept in operation because of how convenient they are for the public. New Yorks LaGuardia for example. Chicago Midway was the textbook. That South Korean airport that just ate a 737. And hundreds of others. Ronald Reagan is one of the worst for this.

As an aside if they want to keep KDCA open in the coming decades they should really shut down 15/33 and 4/22, even though it'll reduce capacity the procedures for both of those involve complex maneuvers even beyond the patomac river approach done for 1/19 and can't handle safer precision approaches unlike 01.

 

[Dammit Mandrake!]

Imagine living a life of nonstop grueling physical exertion and eating disorders, only to be killed by an army fuckup before you can even win a gold medal for all of it.

Lol yeah...

The Olympics really are shit.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

Controller didn't correct them, possibly afraid of pissing off the army?

If the helo wasn't using ADS-B they may have not been providing ATC with altitude

 

[Lian Xing]

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

If the helo wasn't using ADS-B they may have not been providing ATC with altitude

There’s a video of the radar tracks showing the helo’s altitude

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Nancy Kerrigan breaks down in tears at press conference at Boston ice rink. Tenley Albright is also there.

These are the names of the first victims:

- Spencer Lane
- Jinna Han
- Vadim Naumov
- Evgenia Shishkova
- Eddie Zhou
- Everly Livingston
- Lydia Livingston
- Franco Aparicio
- Sean Kay
- Angela Yang

 

[Jinn in the phone]

"The military does dangerous things, it does routine things on the regular basis. Tragically, last night, a mistake was made," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says about the deadly midair collision near Reagan National Airport, calling it "some sort of an elevation issue."

View attachment 6922156

That helicopter pilot you see, he had anxiety and bad dreams. He just needed a sleeve of mcgillicuddy's metholimint to take the edge off.

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

Nancy Kerrigan breaks down in tears at press conference at Boston ice rink. Tenley Albright is also there.

These are the names of the first victims:

- Spencer Lane
- Jinna Han
- Vadim Naumov
- Evgenia Shishkova
- Eddie Zhou
- Everly Livingston
- Lydia Livingston
- Franco Aparicio
- Sean Kay
- Angela Yang

Welp, I'm tearing up now.

 

[Farm Hand]

so it's looking like human error now on the helo's pilots part

he was too high and looking at the wrong plane when talking with the ATC

In some ways that...better I guess? No big conspiracy, no black ops or suicide pact just a person who made a bad call at the worst possible time resulting in a tragedy.

Assuming that the helo pilot mistakenly looked at the A319 that seems to be more dead-ahead of the helo, would there be some fault with the ATC for not being clear about how the CRJ is to the left? Or maybe the ATC didn't even consider the distant A319 at all when he instructed the helo to seek the CRJ.

 

[Bonesjones]

Assuming that the helo pilot mistakenly looked at the A319 that seems to be more dead-ahead of the helo, would there be some fault with the ATC for not being clear about how the CRJ is to the left? Or maybe the ATC didn't even consider the distant A319 at all when he instructed the helo to seek the CRJ.

Air traffic control is a lot like directing people on and off an interstate. The vast majority of the experience is routine merging in and out of the traffic patterns. But when shit gets fucked up, it starts fast and doesn't stop. The ATC correctly assumes that the helicopter understands the regular pattern of traffic and shouldn't need to be coached through it without otherwise specifying you have a problem.

To add: I'm assuming the DC airport is like most major airports. They have a takeoff and landing within 1 to 5 minutes of each other all day every day. So as soon as this air collision happened. You've got 4 or 5 people trying to figure out exactly what happened, what went wrong, and how it affects every other plane in the air. While also directing traffic for the plane that's 30 seconds behind them.