New Delhi:
There are no survivors in the midair collision between a US Army Blackhawk helicopter and a passenger jet in Washington DC, a fire official said. Twenty-eight bodies have been recovered from the Potomac River.
“At this point we don’t believe there are any survivors,” Washington Fire Chief John Donnelly told a news conference at Reagan National Airport, outside the US capital. “We are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation.”
Mr Donnelly said 300 first responders had been involved in the operation – most of it conducted in pitch darkness.
“These responders found extremely frigid conditions, they found heavy wind, they found ice on the water, and they operated all night in those conditions,” he said.
There were no details on the cause of the crash, with transport officials saying both aircraft were on standard flight patterns on a clear night with good visibility.
US Figure Skating said several athletes, coaches and officials were aboard the flight, while officials in Moscow confirmed married Russian couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov — who won the 1994 world pairs title — were on the jet.
The Bombardier plane operated by an American Airlines subsidiary, with 60 passengers and four crew on board, was approaching Reagan National Airport at around 9 pm local time after flying from Wichita, Kansas, when the collision happened.
The air traffic controllers warned the US Army helicopter it was on course to collide with a passenger jet, with audio captured from the deadly accident ending in audible gasps from those in the control room.
“Pat 2-5 do you have the CRJ in sight?” a controller asked, using the call sign for the Black Hawk helicopter, asking if it could see the airplane.
“Pat 2-5, pass behind the CRJ,” the controller requested.
Gasps could then be heard moments later, with one voice asking “tower, did you see that?”
“I just saw a fireball and then it was just gone. I haven’t seen anything since they hit the river. But it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit,” another air traffic controller said after the crash.
The airplane would have had the right of way if it was cleared to land, Kyle Bailey, a pilot and aviation expert, told Fox News.
While other officials stressed they were waiting for investigations to unfold — President Donald Trump posted a critical take on the incident on social media.
“The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing,” President Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“Why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”
American Airlines’ chief executive Robert Isom expressed “deep sorrow,” while US Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas called the collision “nothing short of a nightmare.”
With inputs from AFP
