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The air traffic control is shown at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, after the collision of the American Eagle flight and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River, with the Capitol dome in the background, as Go from Virginia, United States. , January 30, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
How a black hawk helicopter hit an American Airlines plane in a fatal accident On the Potomac River on Wednesday night it is still unknown, but questions are emerging, including the altitude of the military helicopter.
Researchers are still drawing evidence from Potomac and looking at everything from freshly extracted flight data and cabin voice recorder information. The 64 people in American Airlines Flight 5342 and the three aboard the helicopter were killed in the Fire ball collision Near Washington, the DC Reagan National Airport, which marks the most fatal American plane accident since 2001.
The Bombardier CRJ-700 airlines of PSA Airlines flew to about 300 feet of final focus on track 33 of Reagan National shortly before 9 pm et on Wednesday when it crashed with the Black Hawk helicopter.
The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said the helicopter was on an annual competition training flight.
According to the rules of the Federal Aviation Administration, the helicopters, which regularly cross through and around Washington, between military bases, the pentagon and other places, must fly in the area near the airport to a maximum of 200 feet.
“In DC, it is a kind of unique environment,” said the National Board of Transportation Security Board, Todd Inman, in an informative session on Thursday afternoon. He pointed out that there are areas of helicopters or tracks in Washington. “This was making the track one to four as part of its normal procedure. If you live in DC, you see many helicopters that go to this area. So there is a very well defined system.”
FAA issued new helicopter flight restrictions on Friday around the Washington National Airport, DC, DC, and Reagan National Airport, with some exceptions for medical evacuation and the application’s application operations, the agency told NBC News .
The airspace between certain bridges, or zone 1, is currently not active. In zone 4 nearby, helicopters are only allowed to fly south of the Woodrow Wilson bridge.
The NTSB leads the collision research that ended in a fireball. The agency said it is still collecting information and that it is too early to draw conclusions.
“It’s not that we don’t have information. We have information,” said NTSB president Jennifer Homendy. “We have substantial amounts of information. We need to verify the information. We need to take our time to ensure that it is necessary.”
The NTSB recovered flight data and voice recorder from the passenger plane cabin. The boxes were taken to NTSB Labs for evaluation, said the agency.
President Donald Trump wrote Friday in Social truth That the helicopter “flew too high, by far. It was well above the limit of 200 feet. That is not really too complicated to understand, right?”
Hegseth made a similar statement in an informative session of the White House on Thursday.
“Tragically, a mistake was made last night,” he said. “There was some kind of elevation problem that we have immediately begun to investigate at the level of DOD and Army.”
