American military helicopter collapses like the one that broke down Commercial American Airlines Flight Through the River Potomac in Washington, DC, they are very rare on Wednesday night, but in these incidents in recent years there has been a climb in these incidents, according to military statistics and aviation expert.
A total of 64 people, including crew passengers and members, were on board AA Flight 5342 from Wichita to the National Airport of Reagan (DCA). Three soldiers performed a training operation about Army Sikorsky Uh-60 Black Hawk This came from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
“It is concerned, of course, the number of incidents that was,” said Timothy Loranger, an aircraft lawyer at the Wisner Bauma and a Marine Corps Veteran, for Fox News Digital. “But if you compare it to thousands and thousands of hours of flights that happen without any incident … that’s all very well.”
The collision raised questions about how such an devastating accident could happen in one of the funniest controlled airspaces in the country and the world. The last significant fatal commercial collision occurred in 2009, when the Continental Airlines flight crashed into a house in Buffalo, New York, killing 49 people.
On January 30, 2025, the crew retrieved the wreckage of US Air Force Companies 5342 in Rijeka Potomac near Washington, DC. The plane was involved in a fatal collision with Black Hawk helicopter the US Army the previous night. (Leigh Green for Fox News Digital)
“Is there anything we can point to? Is the military budget enough to ensure that pilots and crews have enough training and experiences to fly these aircraft?” Said Loranger. “These are the types of questions that have to be asked. If the problem with the aircraft itself, the mechanical problem, what is it? Is that a matter of design? Is this a production problem? Is that a maintenance problem?”
The military helicopter collisions, although unusual, occur more often during the last year, according to the army data.
FBI agents are near the debris, after the 5342 US Air Force collided with the Black Hawk helicopter as he approached Ronald Reagan Washington’s national airport and crashed into the Potomac River in Arlington in Virginia on January 30, 2025. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
The Fiscal Year 2024 had the most difficult aircraft incidents that resulted in the fatal cases from the Fiscal year 2014 and the worst death rate and serious injuries from incidents to 100,000 hours from Fiscal 2007, According to military statistics.
Fox News counted at least 10 deaths from the US military helicopter alone in 2024, including Five Marines on the same aircraftand more other injured. Since 2012, there have been 21 deaths from the Black Hawk collision.
Loranger called death last year in military helicopters “in connection with”.
Watch: Video shows the aircraft drop in Midair
Defense Minister Pete Hegsetth said on Friday “Fox & Friends” that officials “would reach the bottom of what happened here.”
“It is completely unacceptable in the capital of our country or anywhere. The army trains, and it is training strongly. And we will not stop perfecting, although there is a break on this unit, in this exercise, which is important. And we should have that break We get to the bottom of this, “Hegsetth said. “… we have to train for sure. Something like that cannot happen. And that is completely unacceptable.”
Look: Hegsetth is a vow to deliver answers
The pilot instructor in charge, which flew to Black Hawk on Wednesday at training, obviously had 1,000 flying hours, which is considered very experienced, and the Ko-Pilot also assessed was 500 hours of flying, which is considered an average amount of experience, according to American an official who spoke with Fox News.
“This is a relatively light route,” Pentagon told reporters in Pentagon, the main place of the army, a police officer from the decades of flying helicopters for the armies. The pilot flew down the center of the river, which is mostly dark, probably wearing night visions glasses. The memory bridge would be their last checkpoint.
January 29, Washington, DC, a collision with a plane-helicopter collision.
Military and other Government helicopters fly the same route almost daily, a senior military pilot and the finder told reporters.
“That should not be a problem,” the official said.
Loranger described DCA as “a very complicated airspace, a very busy airspace.”
Photographs of victims after a collision between Airrican Airlines and American Black Hawk helicopter. (Getty Images)
“There are a lot of aircraft flying in and out,” he said, adding that aircraft have systems intended to give information to pilots about pilots or other items flying nearby to avoid collisions like the one on Wednesday. It might be difficult for a commercial plane and Black Hawk to see at night across the river, Loranger said.
Staff in Air Control Tower in DCA and “was not normal for the time of day and quantity of traffic,” the internal preliminary federal air administration (FAA) report states New York Times.
Victims identified in an airline accident involving jet and military helicopter American Airlines
Controller who was Handling helicopters On Wednesday night, they also taught planes that landed and left the airport runway, The Times reported. These tasks are usually assigned two controllers.
The plane flies near Ronald Reagan Washington’s national airport, after a collision of an American Eagle 5342 flight and Black Hawk helicopter, which crashed into the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia on January 30, 2025. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
“I don’t know exactly how the staff happened in that certain air traffic control tower,” Hegsetth said “Fox & Friends”. “Sounds like missing [of controllers]And the investigation will tell us more about it. But the environment around which we choose pilots or air traffic controllers, as the president properly pointed out yesterday, is better to be the highest possible standard – the best of the best to manage … a minute of a minute and managed radio traffic. “
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Fox News Digital spoke to FAA -i.
The Air Control Tower at Reagan Airport has had enough staff for years with 19 completely certified controllers since September 2023. However, the FFA and controller Alliance invited to 30 controllers in his staff goals.
Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, Liz Friden and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
