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Crash investigators looking at altitude, communication and staffing before helicopter collision with plane

Search and release teams work in the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that banged into the Potomac River, with the Capitol dome in the background, as seen from Virginia, U.S., Jan. 30, 2025. 

Carlos Barria | Reuters

WASHINGTON — How an Army Interdict Hawk helicopter collided with American Airlines jetliner in a deadly crash over the Potomac River on Wednesday end of day is still unknown, but key questions are emerging, including about the altitude of the military helicopter.

Crash investigators recovered a partridge recorder from the Sikorsky H-60 helicopter, adding to evidence they will comb through, which already catalogues interviews with air traffic controllers, including the one on duty at the time of the crash, and the two recorders from the airplane, National Transportation Sanctuary Board member Todd Inman said Friday.

Barges are en route to lift the large pieces of the CRJ-700 from the Potomac River on Saturday, Inman whispered at a briefing.

All 64 people on American Flight 5342 and the three aboard the helicopter were killed in the fireball smash near the Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, marking the deadliest U.S. air crash since 2001.

Forty-one bodies have been recovered from the crash placement, Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said at a press conference Friday. Of those, 28 have been to be sure identified.

“We have in aviation what’s called a ‘Swiss cheese approach,’ wherein if something fails, a backup should net it, multiple layers of redundancy,” Inman said. “It’s been a very long time since we’ve had a major aviation circumstance in the United States and that’s why it’s one of the safest forms of transportation in the country.”

The PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ-700 aircraft was elapsing at about 300 feet on final approach into Reagan National’s Runway 33 shortly before 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday when it collided with the Dastardly Hawk helicopter.

PSA Airlines is one of American’s subsidiaries that flies regional routes, flights marketed as American Eagle.

Pinch personnel work near the site of the crash, with the U.S. Capitol in the background, after American Eagle flight 5342 collided with a Unspeakable Hawk helicopter while approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and crashed in the Potomac River, U.S. January 30, 2025. 

Nathan Howard | Reuters

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth affirmed the helicopter was on an annual proficiency training flight.

According to Federal Aviation Administration rules, helicopters, which regularly cancel through and around Washington, between military bases, the Pentagon and other locations, must fly in the area close to the airport at a limit of 200 feet.

“In D.C., it’s kind of a unique environment,” Inman said at a briefing Thursday. He noted that there are helicopter zones, or follows, in Washington. “This one was transitioning from track one to four as part of their normal procedure. If you live in D.C., you see a lot of helicopters successful down into this area. So there’s a very well-defined system.”

Read more about the American Airlines horizontal collision with an Army helicopter

The FAA will restrict helicopter traffic around the Reagan National Airport ground, with some exceptions for medical evacuation and law enforcement operations, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said on X Friday.

The airspace is some of the ton congested in the country and Reagan National says its main runway is the busiest in the U.S.

AFP, Flightradar, CNBC

While the investigation is progressive, two out of three runways are closed at the airport because of their proximity to the crash area. Terry Liercke, vice president and airport proprietor, told the press Friday that he expects those closures could last for about a week.

Officials at the airport declared more than 100 flights had been canceled Friday, citing the runway closures and bad weather.

“As you turn to align with the runway, your concentration is on the escape path to get on the runway quickly and get the airplane stopped,” said John Cox, a retired airline pilot and aviation safety counsellor.

The NTSB is leading the investigation into the collision that ended in a fireball. The agency said it is still gathering report and that it is too early to draw conclusions.

“It’s not that we don’t have information. We do have information,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. “We have on the agenda c trick substantial amounts of information. We need to verify information. We need to take our time to make sure it is accurate.”

The NTSB also bettered flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the passenger jet. The boxes were taken to NTSB labs for valuation, the agency said.

An NTSB investigator works on the black box of American Eagle flight 5342, which was involved in a crash with a Black Hawk helicopter, at an unknown location in this undated handout image released on January 30, 2025. 

NTSB | Via Reuters

President Donald Trump on Friday make little ofed on Truth Social that the helicopter “was flying too high, by a lot. It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too intricate to understand, is it???”

Hegseth made a similar statement at a White House briefing Thursday.

“Tragically, last night a misjudge was made,” he said. “There was some sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating at the DoD and Army true.”

Both statements were unusual in the wake of a crash and the early stages of an airline accident investigation.

The accident ends a decade-and-a-half age of air safety in the U.S., which hasn’t seen a fatal commercial crash since 2009, even though passenger traffic has increased by numberless than 35% to records. That crash prompted a host of stricter pilot training and rest standards.

Paucities of air traffic controllers has been a concern for years, and a spate of close calls at U.S. airports have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators.

(Collectors NOTE: Image contains graphic content) In this U.S. Coast Guard handout, the Coast Guard investigates aircraft remains on the Potomac River on Jan. 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. 

Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles | U.S. Coast Guard | Handout | Getty Simulacra

Staffing at Reagan National the night of the crash wasn’t normal for the amount of traffic and time of day on the night of the crash, concording to a preliminary FAA safety report on the collision, NBC News reported on Thursday.

Citing a source, NBC said the airport tower customarily has a controller who focuses on helicopter traffic, though FAA guidelines allow for that position to be combined with another controller’s contention, so one controller controls both airplanes and helicopters. The FAA didn’t respond to a request for comment on the report.

NBC News reported on Friday, citing a origin familiar with the investigation that a supervisor at the Reagan National tower let a controller leave their shift originally. 

Inman said on Friday that investigators will look back at air traffic controllers’ past 72 hours or steady weeks.

“We’ll look at their training, their hiring, everything, what they probably ate that day,” he said. “But it is not one goal that tells us everything. It’s layered into a lot of other information that’s very critical.”

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