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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So either/combo of unqualified or bad pilot, DEI hire who shouldn’t be there, there because daddy is a major, or terrible ATC?
I wonder why the instructor didn’t correct them? Surely they’re aware the night vision changes how you see stuff?
I hope this promotes a general move towards quality rather than cheapness or diversity, won’t hold my breath though. Even when you get good people in, all the margins are cut to the bone and everyone’s overloaded.
I understand that this is an NVG training exercise, but even at the lowest level of soldier, you are taught how NVGs affect perception. Also any type of light at night is dazzling bright so it’s good to have one on/one off… This whole situation is too weird for an error of CWO to make.
 
I understand that this is an NVG training exercise, but even at the lowest level of soldier, you are taught how NVGs affect perception. Also any type of light at night is dazzling bright so it’s good to have one on/one off… This whole situation is too weird for an error of CWO to make.
I've seen some correction. It is known both pilots had nvg gear. It is not yet determined if they were using them for this portion of the flight.
 
Unbelievable..

Wait, why were their MULTIPLE people hand recording specifically these two craft in pretty good quality?! Am i missing something here? I'm not putting on my tinfoil hat here or anything yet but..
Sorry to burst your conspiracy bubble but pretty sure those are both people recording screens from security cams/webcams, you can see the edges of the window they're being displayed on in both of them
 
But when it comes to this, I can’t comprehend HOW you fuck up this badly. You can see the lights of both the helicopter and the plane from the blurry footage, how does the helicopter crew not see big flashing lights in front of them? Why did they have zero RADAR tech screaming at them they’re about to collide? Even without tech, they have eyes, again how did they not see it?

As others have likely pointed out the pilot flying probably saw the more distant, larger aircraft on final for the intersecting runway, assumed that was the CRJ ATC had mentioned, then went back to being overly reliant on instruments during VFR flight, or looking at the horizon. There is a chance given the approach angles that the pilot could not even see the CRJ without a good wide angle scan. Helicopters are commonly flown from the right seat which will reduce visibility of traffic above you and to your left in a non-canopy helicopter. I never have, and never will, fly with NVGs on, but I imagine it hampers your FOV significantly and requires a more head-on-a-swivel scan. Keep in mind that during night flying IDing traffic is made more difficult, distance and relative speed is difficult to judge. A simple way to demonstrate this to the non-pilot is to pull up ads-b exchange at night when a relatively low aircraft is nearby and try to judge its speed, direction, height above you, and size then compare that to the screen. You'll likely get it very wrong. These are reasons why that helicopter route should not have been active at all when the approaches were, especially at night, because it puts airline traffic a relatively small deviation away from a collision course with helicopters. That's inexcusable at night. Comparing the helicopter route on the charts with the RNAV rwy 33 approach leads me to believe that even with both approach and route flown perfectly, the total separation between a helicopter and landing aircraft is easily "incident - loss of separation" close.

The pilots of the CRJ almost certainly did not see the helicopter until it was either too late to do anything about it or already hitting them, if they saw it at all and didn't just hear a horrendous noise and lose all control of the aircraft for reasons unknown to them or end their lives flying normally, with never even a clue of their fate.


One thing I can't stand about aviation disasters is watching all of the general public who don't know a VOR from a nav light yap about aviation stuff. It's like that classic image of diane feinstein holding an AK on stage with her finger on the trigger. If I had a xitter I'd reply to this xitter poster and tell him to shut the fuck up until he reads some books on the matter. No, not every aircraft in the world has a FDR and CVR, no, military aircraft aren't subject to the same exact rule set as civil. No, small aircraft do not typically have any data logging functions aside from modern FADEC and glass panel nav systems.
 
I have skipped through the highlights but i haven't seen anything mentioned yet, Were there any survivors or was it 100% fatal?
 
Why in the name of fucking sanity would you train in night goggle use over the nations capital in a fucking approach corridor with civilian traffic!?
This was not either pilots first time flying under NODs. As far as I can tell it wasn't a recertification flight either. It was training mission insofar as it was part of a wider exercise for Continuity of Government operations. Flying at night over the Potomac past DCA is their intended mission approximately 50% of the time.
Hey, I know that one. That's those concrete wizard hats.
 
The pilots of the CRJ almost certainly did not see the helicopter until it was either too late to do anything about it or already hitting them, if they saw it at all and didn't just hear a horrendous noise and lose all control of the aircraft for reasons unknown to them or end their lives flying normally, with never even a clue of their fate.
The CRJ would have been in a sharp left hand bank to turn from following the river, to swinging to line up visually on runway 33 at the moment of impact. They would have been completely blind to the helicopter approaching from below right. Plus both CRJ pilots eyes would be locked as much as possible on that runway to the left. It's an insane runway approach pattern and procedures. If they lost sight of the runway they could not land. The 33 approach pattern has zero margin for error.
 
The CRJ would have been in a sharp left hand bank to turn from following the river, to swinging to line up visually on runway 33 at the moment of impact. They would have been completely blind to the helicopter approaching from below right. Plus both CRJ pilots eyes would be locked as much as possible on that runway to the left. It's an insane runway approach pattern and procedures. If they lost sight of the runway they could not land. The 33 approach pattern has zero margin for error.
Screenshot 2025-01-31 155522 - Copy.png
Shallow bank at time of impact, they were leveling off. This frame is why I said "almost certainly" instead of just "did not". Because it is entirely possible that in the last moment of life they saw the illuminated form of the helicopter flash in front of them.
 
Agreed, the instructor/ other pilot should have also been alert to the fuck up, but in the end it’s the pilot on the stick who caused the crash.
Just a reminder that “pilot in command” is the person in charge of the safe operation of the aircraft - even if they are not at the controls or are not flying the plane.

It’s like a captain of the ship is always responsible for the ship even if they’re currently asleep.

The PIC is often the person actually manipulating the controls, but not always.
 
It must be a black tranny in a wheelchair if they won't release the third name.

Pentagon Identifies Two of Three Helicopter Crew Killed in Crash
Bloomberg (archive.ph)
By Nick Wadhams
2025-01-31 20:44:08GMT
  • Trump suggested DEI policies played a role in collision
  • Two Black Hawk crew named as Andrew Eaves and Ryan O’Hara
The Pentagon identified two of the three US soldiers killed when their UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter collided with a commercial airliner, but withheld the name of the third at the request of the victim’s family.

The two identified soldiers were named as Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland, and Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, according to an Army statement. The third soldier’s name “will not be released at this time,” it said.

The remains of Eaves and the unidentified soldier still haven’t been recovered, and they were listed as “duty status-whereabouts unknown.” The Army said earlier that one of the pilots — believed to be Eaves — had 1,000 hours of flying experience and was overseeing a training mission when the collision occurred. The other pilot had about 500 hours of flying experience.

No other reason was given for the decision not to release the third soldier’s name. A US defense official said earlier that one of the three crew members was a woman.

The politics around the crash have become charged since President Donald Trump suggested that diversity, equity and inclusion policies may have played a role in the accident. Trump suggested in a post to Truth Social on Friday that the helicopter was to blame for the crash, which also killed all 64 people on the passenger jet, because it may have been flying too high.

“The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot,” Trump wrote. “It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???”

In a briefing with reporters on Thursday, Army aviation official Jonathan Koziol called both pilots, who were conducting a routine training mission, “an experienced crew.” He said the instructor pilot, who had more flying hours, “was flying the aircraft with a fellow pilot in command.”

“The 1,000 hour instructor pilots — that’s a lot of iterations of flying when the helicopter flies about two hours of flight,” Koziol said. “So, lots of flying time for that. And then, the pilot in command, the 500 hours, I can confirm that’s what we are tracking, is an experienced pilot in command.”
 
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