A mid-air collision between an Army helicopter and a jetliner killed all 67 people aboard the two aircraft, officials said on Thursday.
At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter apparently flew into the path of the American Airlines regional jet late on Wednesday while it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, just across the river from Washington.
The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members, and three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.
President Donald Trump told a White House news conference that no one survived.
“We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” said John Donnelly, the fire chief in the nation’s capital.
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the US since November 12 2001, when an American Airlines flight slammed into a residential area of Belle Harbour, New York, just after take-off from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard.
The crash occurred before 9pm in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over three miles (about 4.8 kilometres) south of the White House and the Capitol.
Air crash investigations can take months, and federal investigators told reporters they would not speculate on the cause.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane, agency spokesperson Peter Knudson said. They were at the agency’s labs for evaluation.
The plane was found upside-down in three sections in waist-deep water, and first responders were searching miles of the Potomac, Donnelly said. The helicopter wreckage was also found. Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.
American Airlines chief executive Robert Isom said the plane was making a normal approach when “the military aircraft came into the path” of the jet.
One air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes when the collision happened, according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that was obtained by The Associated Press.
Those duties are often divided between two people, but the airport typically combines the roles at 9.30pm, once traffic begins to slow down. On Wednesday the tower supervisor directed that they be combined earlier.
“The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the report said. A person familiar with the matter, however, said the tower staffing that night was at a normal level.
The positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks, during shift changes or when air traffic is slow, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.
The Federal Aviation Administration has long struggled with a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kansas, carrying, among others, a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches, and four union steamfitters from the Washington area.
A top Army aviation official said the crew of the helicopter, a Black Hawk, was “very experienced” and familiar with the congested flying that occurs daily around the city.
“Both pilots had flown this specific route before, at night. This wasn’t something new to either one of them,” said Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation.
The helicopter’s maximum allowed altitude at the time was 200 feet (about 60 metres), Mr Koziol said. It was not immediately clear whether it exceeded that limit, but defence secretary Pete Hegseth said altitude seemed to be a factor in the collision.
Mr Koziol said investigators need to analyse the flight data before making conclusions about altitude.
Mr Trump opened the news conference with a moment of silence honouring the crash victims, calling it an “hour of anguish” for the country.
But he spent most of his time casting political blame, lashing out at former president Joe Biden’s administration and diversity efforts at the Federal Aviation Administration, saying they had led to slipping standards — even as he acknowledged that the cause of the crash was unknown.
Without evidence, Mr Trump blamed air traffic controllers, the helicopter pilots and Democratic policies at federal agencies. He claimed that the FAA was “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative”.
Inside Reagan National, the mood was sombre on Thursday as stranded passengers waited for flights to resume, sidestepping camera crews and staring out the windows at the Potomac, where recovery efforts were barely visible in the distance.
Aster Andemicael had been there since the previous evening with her older adult father, who was flying to Indiana to visit relatives. She spent much of the long night thinking about the victims and their families.
“I’ve been crying since yesterday,” Ms Andemicael said, her voice cracking. “This is devastating.”
Flights resumed around midday.
