American Airlines jet with 64 aboard collides with Army helicopter at Reagan Airport

An American Airlines plane is parked at a gate at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Arlington, Va. Image via AP.

A jet with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard collided Wednesday with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River.

The aircraft was a Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine plane carrying 64 people and a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. It’s not clear yet how many people were killed.

Fatal crashes of commercial aircraft in the U.S. have become a rarity. The deadliest recent crash took place on Feb. 12, 2009 near Buffalo, New York.

That incident saw a Colgan Air Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane crashing into a house, killing everyone aboard including 45 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants. Another person on the ground also died, bringing the total death toll to 50.

In August 2006, a Comair aircraft crashed when taking off in Lexington, Kentucky, after it left from the wrong runway and ran off the end. Two crew members and 47 passengers were killed.

And in November 2001, an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York just after take off. All 260 people aboard the plane were killed.

Apart from a few flashing red lights, Ronald Reagan National Airport late Wedensday looked eerily still from Daingerfield Island, directly across the water.

Along the shoreline, dozens of flashing emergency lights in red and white indicated ongoing search efforts.

Further into the Potomac River, more flashing blue and white lights moved across the water.

Overhead, a circling helicopter is a constant presence.

Some 300 first responders had arrived at the scene overnight and inflatable rescue boats were launched into the Potomac.

D.C. fire chief John Donnelly said earlier that “The conditions out there are extremely rough for the responders.”

The Kremlin confirmed that Russian figure skaters, as well as other Russian nationals, were on the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Potomac River near Washington, DC.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to reporters Thursday that Russian figure skaters Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships and competed at the Winter Olympics twice, were aboard the plane.

“Unfortunately, we see that this sad information is being confirmed. There were other fellow citizens there. Bad news today from Washington. We are sorry and send condolences to the families and friends who lost those of our fellow citizens who died in the plane crash,” he said.

He did not give details on how many fatalities there were.

Shishkova and Naumov are listed as professional pairs coaches on the website of the Skating Club of Boston. Their son, Maxim Naumov, is a competitive figure skater for the U.S.

Hundreds of rescuers are searching the frigid waters of the Potomac River for any survivors of the plane crash.

Images showed boats around a partly submerged wing and what appeared to be the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.

Helicopters flew overhead with powerful search lights scanning the murky waters.

Emergency vehicles lit up the banks of the Potomac in a long line of blinking red lights.

The water temperature was just above freezing.

Officials who held a press conference at Reagan National Airport did not announce any deaths, but they all had a somber tone.

Sen. Roger Marshall, of Kansas, said, “When one person dies it’s a tragedy, but when many, many, many people die it’s an unbearable sorrow.”

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser would not say whether any bodies were recovered from the crash.

Search and rescue efforts have been challenging, said D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John A. Donnelly. The Potomac River is about 8 feet deep where the aircraft crashed after the collision.

“The water is dark,” he said. “It is murky.”

U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas, said the plane that crashed was flying a route from Wichita to Washington that began about a year ago.

“I know that flight,” he said. “I’ve flown it several times myself.”

Moran said he expected that many people in Wichita would know people who were on the flight.

“This is a very personal circumstance,” he said.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.