Everyone on board an American Airlines jet that collided with a US army helicopter was feared dead, officials confirmed.
Everyone on board an American Airlines jet that collided with a US army helicopter was feared dead, officials confirmed.
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By Michael Koziol
Updated January 31, 2025 — 4.26amfirst published at 12.38am
Washington: US President Donald Trump has sought to blame diversity and inclusion policies and the Biden administration for a midair collision in the US capital that killed 67 people, while admitting there was no evidence yet to support his claims.
As bodies were being pulled from the frigid Potomac River in Washington, the president and members of his cabinet used a press conference to suggest Federal Aviation Administration hiring policies were a causative factor in the crash, despite the investigation being only hours old.
Trump also blamed the pilots of the US Army Black Hawk helicopter involved in the accident, saying it “obviously was in the wrong place at the wrong time” when it crossed the path of an American Airlines regional jet that was coming into land just before 9pm on Wednesday night (Thursday AEDT).
“The people in the helicopter should have seen where they were going,” Trump said. “The helicopter had vision of the plane… You could have slowed down the helicopter substantially. You could have stopped the helicopter. You could have gone up, you could have gone down, you could have turned. For some reason, it just kept going. And then made a slight turn at the very end, and by that time it was too late.”
Trump implied air traffic controllers should have prevented the two aircraft being in the same place at the same time, and suggested without evidence that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices could have been a factor. He accused his predecessor Joe Biden and former transport secretary Pete Buttigieg of watering down entry requirements for traffic controllers in the name of diversity.
“You can’t have regular people doing that job, they won’t be able to do it … they have to be at the highest level of genius,” Trump said. “[Buttigieg] is a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor, he ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster now. He’s just got a good line of bullshit … He’s run it [the FAA] right into the ground with his diversity.”
Pressed by reporters for evidence that DEI played any role in the crash, Trump acknowledged there was none.
“It just could have been,” he said. “We don’t know, but we do know you had two planes at the same level. That shouldn’t have happened.” He later added: “My original order [on FAA hiring policies] should have never been changed and I think maybe you wouldn’t have had this problem.”
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Buttigieg, who contested the 2020 Democratic primary against Biden before dropping out, said Trump’s comments were: “Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying.
“We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch,” he wrote on X.
“President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the president to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.”
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, where the collision occurred, is next to the Pentagon and just across the river from central Washington, and commonly deals with helicopter traffic in the area. The Black Hawk was undertaking a routine nighttime training operation but “a mistake was made”, Trump’s new Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said.
“There was some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investing at a Department of Defence and army level,” he said, before noting that “the era of DEI is gone at the Defence Department”.
Officials had earlier confirmed the American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas – operated by a regional subsidiary, PSA Airlines – was making a standard approach into Reagan airport on a clear night with good visibility.
There were no survivors, Trump said, affirming earlier remarks from District of Columbia fire chief John Donnelly, who said the rescue mission had transitioned to a recovery mission. All 60 passengers and crew of flight AA5342, and the helicopter’s three crew were feared dead.
At least 28 bodies have been retrieved from the river.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, who was only sworn into the job on Tuesday, said the wreckage of both aircraft had been located. The fuselage of the passenger jet, a Bombardier CRJ700, was found inverted in three different sections in waist-deep water, and would now be analysed by the National Transportation Safety Bureau, the lead investigating agency. NTSB officials were due to hold a media conference at the airport.
“On final approach into Reagan National it collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said. “At this time we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the … aircraft.”
Passengers on the flight included a group of figure skaters, their coaches and family members, who were returning from a development camp following the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
Two of those coaches were Russian figure skaters Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the pairs title at the 1994 World Championships and competed twice in the Olympics. Trump confirmed the administration had been in contact with Russia and the bodies would be repatriated. Their son, Maxim Naumov, is a competitive figure skater for the US.
The two Russians were coaches at the Skating Club of Boston, which confirmed six members were on the flight: Shishkova, Naumov, two athletes and their mothers. The Skating Club of Boston lists them as coaches.
“Our sport and this club have suffered a horrible loss with this tragedy,” the club’s chief executive Doug Zeghibe said. “We are devastated and completely at a loss for words.”
Several American skaters were also aboard the passenger jet, according to US Figure Skating, the governing body for figure skating in the United States.
Once the death toll is confirmed, the midair collision will rank as the worst US air disaster since 2001, when an American Airlines Airbus A300 crashed shortly after take-off from New York, killing 265 people.
with Reuters
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