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Military Helicopter Collides with Airliner over Washington Airport, No Survivors

A military Black Hawk helicopter collided over the Potomac River with an American Airlines commercial jet that was preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. The accident occurred around 9 p.m. on the evening of Jan. 29. There were around 60 passengers and 4 crew on the commercial jet coming in from Wichita, Kansas, and 3 military personnel in the Army helicopter. Among the casualties on the AA flight 5342 from Wichita were a group of figure skaters, including the Bronze medalist of the U.S.S.R. championship Inna Volyanskaya, and two Russian world champions in figure skating, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who were coaching two teenage U.S. skaters who were on the plane with their mothers. Other skaters on the plan had also attended a development camp held after Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.

Both the plane and the helicopter ended up in the Potomac River. Many bodies have been recovered and the recovery effort continues.

There was an immediate all-of-government response in Virginia, Washington, and Maryland to save any survivors, and to recover the remains of those who died. There were literally dozens of boats and vehicles along the shore and in the water within an hour of the crash. President Trump had been informed within minutes of the accident. At a press conference on Jan. 30, President Trump offered his condolences to the victims’ families, noting also that there were foreigners on board. Before waiting for detailed information to be gathered and verified, Trump decided to take a swing at the Biden DEI policy, saying that work in the realm of air controllers, merit, rather than diversity, must be paramount. (Obviously the workers need to be competent, but that general statement does not replace a specific investigation into the crash.) The National Transportation Safety Board, which expects to have its preliminary findings available in 30 days, urged people not to speculate on the cause, saying “we can’t speculate on anything that may have been reported in the media until we get the opportunity to validate and understand how it impacts the investigation.”

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