National Air Transport Airport at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in the picture, after a US 5342 Flight and Black Hawk helicopter collision, which crashed into the Potomac River, with the Capitol dome in the background, as seen from Virginia, USA, 30. January 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
As the Black Hawk military helicopter collided in the Airrican Airrican Airlines in Deadly decline The Potomac River is still unknown Wednesday night, but questions are asked, including the altitude of military helicopters.
Investigators still withdraw evidence from descendants and look at everything from the newly withdrawn flight information and voice dictaphony data. All 64 people on American Airlines Flight 5342 and three on board a helicopter were killed in Fire ball of collision Near Washington, DC’s National Airport Reagan, celebrating the most deadly American air accident since 2001.
The Airlines Bombardier Crj-700 PSA aircraft flew at about 300 feet on the final approach to Reagan National 33, shortly before 9pm, when he collided with Black Hawk helicopter.
Defense Minister Pete Hegsetth said the helicopter was on an annual flight to training expertise.
According to the rules of the Federal Air Force Administration, helicopters, which regularly cross through Washington and around, between military bases, pentagons and other locations, must fly in the area near the airport at a maximum of 200 feet.
“In DC, this is a unique environment,” said a member of the National Transport Safety Committee Todd Inman on Brifing on Thursday afternoon. He noted that there are helicopter or path zones in Washington. “This one crossed from the path of one to four as part of their usual procedure. If you live in a DC, you see that a lot of helicopter descend into this area. So there is a very well defined system.”
FAA has issued new flights to Washington, DCs, areas and National Airport on Friday on Friday, with some exceptions for medical evacuation and law enforcement operations, said the NBC News Agency.
Air space between certain bridges or zones 1 is currently not active. In the nearby zone 4 helicopters are allowed only south of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.
The NTSB leads the investigation of a collision that ended in a fireball. The agency said she was still collecting information and that it was too early to draw conclusions.
“It’s not that we don’t have information. We have information,” NTSB president said Jennifer Homendy. “We have significant amounts of information. We need to check the information. We need to take the time to make sure it is correct.”
The NTSB recovered a flight data and a cockpit recorder from the passenger jet. The boxes were taken to the NTSB Labs for evaluation, the agency said.
President Donald Trump wrote about Friday about Truth social That the helicopter “flew too high, enough. He was far above a 200 -foot limit. This is not really too complicated to understand, right ???”
Hegsetth made a similar statement on the white house briefing on Thursday.
“Tragically, a mistake was made last night,” he said. “There were some questions of above sea levels that we immediately began to explore at the level of the army.”
