2025 Potomac River mid-air collision

On January 29, 2025, a Bombardier CRJ700 airliner operating as American Airlines Flight 5342 (operated by PSA Airlines as American Eagle) and a United States Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter operating as Priority Air Transport 25 collided mid-air over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.. The collision occurred at 8:47 p.m. at an altitude of about 300 feet (100 m) and about one-half mile (800 m) short of runway 33 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. All 67 people aboard both aircraft were killed in the crash, including 64 passengers and crew on the airliner and the 3 crew of the helicopter. It was the first major U.S. commercial passenger flight crash in nearly 16 years since Colgan Air Flight 3407 in 2009, and the deadliest U.S. air disaster since the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in 2001.
The jet was on final approach into Reagan National Airport after flying a scheduled route from Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita, Kansas to D.C while the helicopter crew was performing a required annual flying evaluation with night vision goggles and had left from Davison Army Airfield in Fairfax County, Virginia. Both aircraft communicated with air traffic control before they collided. The helicopter crew reported twice that they had visual contact with the airliner and would maintain separation from it, although it is unknown if they were monitoring the correct aircraft. The crew of the Black Hawk did not hear parts of the tower communication due to a mic press.
On March 11, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a preliminary report and urgent safety recommendations, emphasizing the dangerously narrow vertical separation between the runway approach path and the helicopter route. The NTSB chair also expressed anger that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not act on data showing the number of near-miss alerts over the last decade.
Flight 5342 was operated by a 20-year-old Bombardier CRJ700, a regional jet commonly used for short- to medium-haul flights. It was configured as a CRJ701ER, denoting a slightly higher seating capacity and extended range. Manufactured in September 2004, it bore the manufacturer's serial number 10165 and was registered as N709PS. PSA Airlines is owned by the American Airlines Group, which is also the parent company of American Airlines. No problems were reported as the plane took off from Wichita on its way to Washington. Flight 5342's route was only one year old. For many years, Kansas residents had had to drive to adjacent Missouri and Oklahoma if they wanted to take long-distance flights. A year earlier local leaders had finally convinced American Airlines to establish direct passenger air service from Kansas to the East Coast.
The helicopter involved was a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk registered as 00-26860. The helicopter was configured for use as executive transportation for senior U.S. officials and soldiers, and was flying under the callsign PAT25 indicating a "Priority Air Transport" flight. No senior officials were on board the helicopter. The helicopter, of B Company of the 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir, was on an annual and night vision goggles check flight out of Davison Army Airfield when the collision occurred. The helicopter was part of the Continuity of Government Plan, with the flight being a routine re-training of aircrew in night flight along the corridor. In emergencies, elements of the US government would use it to evacuate the capital.
The helicopter had a crew of three Army personnel:
The airliner carried 60 passengers and four crew members: a captain, a first officer and two flight attendants. The captain, Jonathan Campos, 34, was the pilot flying and had been with the airline for six years. He had logged 3,950 flight hours, including 3,024 on CRJ-series aircraft, and was a Federal Flight Deck Officer. The first officer, Samuel Lilley, 28, was the pilot monitoring. He had worked for the airline for two years and accumulated 2,469 flight hours, with 966 on the CRJ.
The airspace around Reagan National Airport is among the world's most complex and closely monitored, with restrictions on both sides of the Potomac River to protect government buildings in Washington, D.C. Efforts have been made to reduce congestion, but in 2024, Congress approved additional flights. Military helicopter operations further complicated the airspace, including a helicopter corridor which passes within 15 feet (4.6 m) vertically of the approach to runway 33.
Reagan National has three runways: 1/19, 15/33, and 4/22. Runways 1/19 handle 95% of commercial aircraft arrivals. Runway 33 has about 4% of arrivals, and runway 15—due to its close proximity to the Pentagon—handles less than 1%. Runways 4/22 are too short for commercial aircraft. During north operations, which were in effect at the time of the collision, most arrivals occur on runway 1, with intermittent arrivals on runway 33, depending on traffic demands and separation requirements. The use of runway 33 is typically limited to smaller aircraft, which are able to land on its relatively short 5,204-foot-long (1,586 m) surface.
On the night of the collision, air traffic control (ATC) staffing was below the typical level for that time and traffic volume, according to a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety report. Normally, the tower had six controllers: assistant local control, ground control, clearance delivery, local control, and an operations supervisor. At 9:30 p.m., when air traffic usually decreases, the helicopter control and local control positions are typically combined. However, on the day of the collision, the supervisor merged those positions at 3:40 p.m. allowing one controller to leave early. The air traffic controllers' union cautioned against assuming the combined role would make conditions unsafe. Helicopter control and local control operate on different radio frequencies, meaning the crews of Flight 5342 and PAT25 were not able to hear each other's transmissions to the controller, but both could hear the controller's responses.
The New York Times reported that as of September 2023, the tower at Reagan Airport was nearly a third below targeted staffing levels. The staffing shortage has forced many controllers to work up to six days a week and 10 hours daily.
At 8:43 p.m. EST (01:43 UTC), as American Airlines Flight 5342 was flying a visual approach to runway 1, it made initial contact with the Reagan National control tower. The controller asked if the crew could switch to runway 33. The crew accepted the request and were subsequently cleared to land on runway 33. The helicopter was about 1.1 nautical miles [nmi] (2.0 km; 1.3 mi) west of the Key Bridge following Helicopter Route 1 to Helicopter Route 4. At 8:46 p.m., around two minutes before the collision, the controller called the helicopter crew, advising them of a CRJ700, at an altitude of 1,200 feet (370 m) south of the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, circling runway 33. The part of the transmission advising that the CRJ was "circling" was not captured by the helicopter's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and may not have been heard by the helicopter crew. The helicopter crew acknowledged that they had the jet in sight and requested visual separation—meaning that they could see and maintain separation from the aircraft on their own—which the controller approved. However, it remains unclear if they had acknowledged the correct aircraft.
At 8:47 p.m. EST, 20 seconds before the collision, the controller asked the helicopter crew if they had the CRJ in sight. An audible air traffic radar conflict alert in the background of the transmission was present. One second later, the airliner crew received an automatic traffic advisory from their traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) which was accompanied by an audible announcement in the cockpit, "traffic; traffic." However, TCAS resolution advisories with audible instructions like "climb; climb " or "descend; descend" are automatically disabled when an aircraft is below 900 feet (270 m) above ground level to avoid guiding an aircraft into potential collisions with terrain or other aircraft in congested terminal airspace. TCAS traffic advisories are disabled below 400 feet (120 m).
Seventeen seconds before the collision, the controller instructed the helicopter to pass behind Flight 5342. One of the helicopter crew members depressed a mic for 0.8 seconds to communicate with the controller during this transmission, which may have caused the "pass behind" part of the transmission to be missed by the helicopter crew. The helicopter crew again confirmed they had an airplane in sight and requested visual separation from the airliner, which the controller approved again. The instructor pilot in the helicopter told the pilot flying that they believed the controller was asking the aircraft to move to the east bank of the Potomac River. Seven seconds before the collision, the airliner "rolled out on final" (finished its turn) to line up with runway 33. One second before the crash, the airliner increased its pitch with its elevators deflected close to its maximum nose-up travel.
The two aircraft collided at 8:47:59. The recorded radio altitude of the Black Hawk at the time of the collision was 278 feet (85 m). The helicopter exploded and both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River. The airliner's airspeed was 128 miles per hour (206 km/h; 111 kn). The CRJ700's radio transponder ceased transmitting about 2,400 feet (730 m) short of Runway 33. The collision was captured by a webcam at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and another video showed a brief trail of fire. Other videos showed that the collision may have damaged the rotor blades of the Black Hawk and the left wing of the CRJ700 as the airliner fell in a left-hand spiral into the water. Witnesses reported that the airliner "split in half" upon impact, while the helicopter crashed upside down near the airliner. A pilot in another aircraft confirmed seeing the crash to an air traffic controller and reported seeing flares from the opposite side of the Potomac as his flight was on short final.
Within three hours of the collision, authorities confirmed fatalities. By 2:50 a.m. the following morning, no survivors had been reported, and the search and rescue operations were described as "becoming more grim". By the afternoon, all 67 people onboard both aircraft were presumed dead.
It was the first major commercial passenger flight accident in the U.S. in nearly 16 years, following Colgan Air Flight 3407 in February 2009. It was also the first fatal crash involving American Airlines since Flight 587 on November 12, 2001, as well as the first fatal crash of a CRJ700 series aircraft. It was the first crash in the Potomac River since Air Florida Flight 90 on January 13, 1982.
Chief John Donnelly of the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department (DC FEMS) said emergency responders were notified of an aircraft crash at 8:48 p.m. The first units arrived at the scene at 8:58 p.m., where they discovered the aircraft in the water. DC FEMS was joined by emergency personnel from the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Fire and Rescue Department, United States Coast Guard, Maryland State Police, along with other local, state, and federal agencies. Additionally, several Hornblower Cruises tour boats sailed from the Washington Sailing Marina in Alexandria, Virginia to help with search and rescue operations.
Fireboats and divers were deployed to search for victims and survivors; cold temperatures, strong winds, ice, and murky water hampered rescue efforts. The water temperature near the crash site was recorded at 35 °F (2 °C). On January 30, the rescue operation turned into a recovery mission. By February 4, all bodies had been recovered, including the three soldiers in the helicopter, and all of them were identified by February 5. After the collision, Reagan National Airport suspended all takeoffs and landings, diverting flights to nearby airports, including Dulles, Baltimore/Washington, and Richmond. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority extended Silver Line service to help passengers whose flights were diverted to Dulles and dispatched "warming buses" to help relief operations. The airport remained closed for over fourteen hours, until 11:00 a.m. on January 30.
The fuselage of Flight 5342 was found upside down in three sections in the river and was recovered. The search for debris was extended to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, three miles (5 km) south of the airport. A crane used to lift debris after the March 2024 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was brought to help pick up plane wreckage, and the U.S. Navy also sent two barges to recover heavy items. According to federal officials, the wreckage of the helicopter was also recovered and was transported to a secure location.
Among the passengers on the jet were 28 U.S. Figure Skating athletes, coaches, and family members returning from a national development camp held in conjunction with the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas. This included eleven skaters, aged 11–16; thirteen parents; and four coaches.
The coaches were all former Soviet/Russian figure skaters. Inna Volyanskaya also had competed in pairs while Alexandr Kirsanov was competed in ice dance. It was the second time members of the U.S. Figure Skating team died in an aviation accident, after the 1961 crash of Sabena Flight 548 in Belgium. Ever since that crash, a former competitor said, it has been rare to see so many American skaters flying together. Due to the lack of any other direct passenger flights between Wichita and the East Coast, Flight 5342 was the most direct route home for visitors from the Northeast. The athlete victims were too young to be viable candidates for the 2026 Winter Olympics but not for the 2030 Winter Olympics.
Among the prominent members of the figure skating community killed in the crash were Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who had won gold medals in pair skating at the 1994 World Figure Skating Championships. The two had a son, Maxim Naumov, who is also a figure skater. He was not on the flight. On March 2, 2025, Naumov would perform alongside others at "Legacy on Ice", a two-hour tribute show held at Capital One Arena in honor of the victims of the crash. His performance was set to "his parents' favorite song", as well as a rendition of Ave Maria, during which he was joined by other skaters. After the performance, he broke down in tears on the ice.
Other passengers included four members of the D.C.-based UA Steamfitters Local 602 union; three students and six parents from schools of Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia; a civil rights attorney and professor at Howard University School of Law; a colonel of the Philippine National Police; the president-elect of the National Association of Biology Teachers; two Chinese nationals, two Polish-American nationals, an unspecified number of German nationals; and a Danish citizen.
On January 31, 2025, the FAA restricted helicopter flights near the airport. The FAA partially closed both the route that the Black Hawk was on when it collided with the CRJ700 and another route that runs south of the Key Bridge in Washington and connects the neighborhood of Georgetown to Rosslyn, Virginia. These routes, designated Route 4 and Route 1 respectively, remain open only to police, medical, air defense, and presidential transport flights. On the same day, PSA Airlines retired flight number 5342 and said that the new number for the Wichita to Washington National route would be Flight 5677.
Separately, two staff members of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority were taken into custody on suspicion of providing CNN with surveillance footage of the crash.
A vigil was held at the Wichita City Council chambers in memory of the victims. The loss of so many athletes was devastating for Wichita, which had fought to raise its prominence by improving passenger air service and seeking to host major sporting events.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the FAA, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Army announced they would launch investigations into the collision. The NTSB prepared an investigation team to send to the accident site. To retain needed personnel after the crash, the agency acquired an exemption from the "Fork in the Road" memo which purported to allow all of its agents to quit with severance paid through September 2025. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also stated it would help with the response. However, there were no indications of terrorism or criminal activity. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) deployed two investigators to help the investigation, since the Bombardier CRJ700 was designed and manufactured in Canada. On the evening of January 30, the flight recorder ("black box") of Flight 5342 was recovered from the wreckage and brought to the NTSB lab for evaluation. The helicopter's flight recorder was recovered on January 31.
According to the NTSB, at the moment of impact, the helicopter was at a radio altitude of 278 feet (85 m). Reagan National requires helicopters on that route to stay at or below 200 feet (61 m) above mean sea level. The NTSB is investigating what altitude the barometric altimeter displayed to the helicopter crew, which was not recorded by the flight recorder. Investigators would normally calculate the barometric altitude displayed to the crew using pressure altitude recorded by the flight recorder, but investigators determined that the data was not valid.
Senators Ted Cruz and Tammy Duckworth addressed questions about the automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast system (ADS-B) which was reportedly turned off on the Black Hawk. Some flight data was being sent from the aircraft but the safety system sends what is considered the most-accurate data. The NTSB confirmed ADS-B was not broadcasting from the helicopter and said they would investigate if there was an equipment malfunction or it was turned off.
A single air traffic controller was managing both aircraft at the time of the crash, an arrangement deemed "not normal" for that time of day at the airport. According to the helicopter's cockpit voice and data recorder, the helicopter crew may have missed parts of two transmissions made by the air traffic controller regarding the jet. Two minutes before the collision, the part of the transmission which said that the plane was "circling" to runway 33 was not heard on the recording. Seventeen seconds before the crash, the part of the transmission stating "pass behind the" was interrupted by the helicopter crew keying their mic to communicate with the air traffic controller.
About nineteen seconds before impact, the crew of Flight 5342 received an automated traffic advisory alert from the TCAS system. Data from the flight recorder showed the PSA jet pitched up about one second before impact, but investigators did not say whether this was an attempted evasive maneuver by the PSA pilots.
The NTSB released a preliminary report on March 11, 2025, accompanied by two urgent safety recommendations to the FAA regarding flight traffic decongestion. Investigators reviewed years of encounters between helicopters and commercial aircraft near Reagan National Airport, finding that "at least one traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) resolution advisory was triggered per month" since 2011.
Helicopters flying within the route 4 corridor, which is designated for operations "at or below 200 feet (61 m)," would have only 75 feet (23 m) of vertical separation from a plane landing on runway 33 if flying directly over the eastern shoreline of the Potomac River. Since route 4 lacks lateral boundaries or instructions to operate a defined distance from the shoreline, this already minimal separation decreases further when a helicopter operates farther from the shore. This vertical separation also decreases if an airplane is operating below the 3° visual glidepath provided by runway 33's precision approach path indicator (PAPI). The board concluded that the proximity of route 4 to runway 33's approach path posed "an intolerable risk to aviation safety."
The NTSB urgently recommended that the FAA close route 4 near the airport during runway 33 landings or opposite-direction takeoffs and designate an alternate helicopter route during those times. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy expressed anger that the FAA had not used the same near-miss data her investigators relied on to identify the risk and examine the helicopter routes before the crash occurred and said, "It does make me angry, but it also makes me feel incredibly devastated for families that are grieving."
As of April 1, 2025, the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is still facing scrutiny over what led to the mid-air collision.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom, in a video statement produced by the airline, said that the airliner pilots were experienced. American Airlines also launched a hotline for family members of passengers on Flight 5342.
Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, an aviation safety expert and the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 that ditched in the Hudson River in 2009, argued for more safety zones and restrictions on flight patterns.
President Donald Trump was briefed on the collision shortly after. Shortly after midnight, he wrote on Truth Social questioning the actions of the air traffic controllers and asserting that the situation could have been prevented. He also criticized the helicopter crew for flying too high. Later that morning, Trump released a statement calling the crash a "terrible accident," thanking emergency responders and saying of the victims: "May God bless their souls."
Trump alleged that the FAA's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals supported by former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama may have been partly to blame for the crash. A policy introduced in 2013 by the Obama administration's FAA that encouraged the hiring of minorities as air traffic controllers was continued by the first Trump administration's FAA. He harshly criticized former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, accusing him of infusing diversity at the FAA.
Trump criticized the FAA for being open to hiring air traffic controllers with "hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial or complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism". This was a policy introduced in 2019 by his own first administration's FAA, which announced a program to allow 20 people with "targeted disabilities" to train at air traffic control centers for air traffic operations careers. Several disabilities such as epilepsy, poor vision, and some mental disorders were still disqualifying for air traffic controller positions per FAA and OPM regulations on DEI hires.
Trump said that he would meet with families of the victims, but rebuffed the idea of visiting the site of the accident after being pressed by reporters during a briefing, asking, "What's the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?" The remark was widely criticized.
Trump received pushback and criticism for his claims that DEI initiatives were to blame for the crash, including by Buttigieg, who said that Trump's claims were "despicable" and that he should be "leading, not lying". Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota criticized Trump for "blaming this deadly crash on minorities and white women" and that the comments were "disgusting, racist and sexist". Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York also criticized Trump's remarks, calling them "idle speculation". Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen criticized Trump by stating that he was "making a political show out of this awful tragedy" about the crash. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut stated that Trump was "blaming Black people and blaming women who work at the FAA without any evidence." Representative Jesús "Chuy" García of Illinois stated that Trump was "exploiting disaster to continue to spread racist lies and divisiveness across the country." Sully Sullenberger responded to Trump by stating that "an airplane cannot know or care" about a pilot's race or gender but can only care about "what control inputs are made" and that he was "disgusted" by Trump's comments.
Meanwhile, Trump administration officials agreed with his claim that such policies may have caused the crash. Vice president JD Vance said, "When you don't have the best standards in who you're hiring, it means on the one hand, you're not getting the best people in government. But on the other hand, it puts stresses on the people who are already there." Sean Duffy, the United States Secretary of Transportation, said, "We can only accept the best and the brightest in positions of safety," while Pete Hegseth, the United States Secretary of Defense, said, "The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department and we need the best and brightest," including in "our air traffic control." Duffy also said, "What I've seen so far, do I think this was preventable? Absolutely." Hegseth also said that the helicopter crew was "fairly experienced," and undergoing "routine annual retraining—night flights on a standard [flight] corridor for a continuity-of-government mission." White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt supported Trump's claim by stating that it was "common sense" to be concerned about potential negative effects of DEI initiatives.
The International Olympic Committee extended "heartfelt sympathies to all those affected, which we understand may include Olympians, young athletes, and their support staff." At the 2025 European Figure Skating Championships, which had begun the morning of the collision, a moment of silence was observed to mourn the figure skaters and family members lost. The International Skating Union and many international skating federations also offered condolences.
Pope Francis sent a telegram to the White House expressing condolences for the victims of the collision. The Russian Embassy in the United States sent condolences to the families of the Russian nationals who died in the crash. The Chinese foreign ministry expressed condolences to the families of the crash victims and demanded a full investigation of the disaster. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered his condolences "to [the] grieving family members and loved ones who are facing unimaginable loss."
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Transportation Safety Board.