| At 8.47pm local time last night, American Airlines flight 5342 was approaching Reagan national airport, one of the busiest in the US, at the end of a flight from Kansas. The jet was coming in to land at a height of about 400ft, and travelling at about 140mph. Thirty seconds before the crash, according to audio obtained by the Associated Press, an air traffic controller asked the pilot of the military Black Hawk helicopter if the arriving plane was in sight. Then they told the helicopter to pass behind the Bombardier CRJ-701 jet. Seconds later, a fireball could be seen over the Potomac river, and the plane’s radio transponder showed a sudden loss of altitude. What do we know about the causes of the crash? That will take time to understand. There was no immediate indication of any deliberate or terrorist cause. The helicopter was on a training exercise in some of the most tightly controlled airspace in the world. The weather in DC was clear. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates all aviation accidents in the US, said that its investigators were on the way to the scene about an hour and a half ago. What do we know about the number of fatalities? No official count has been given yet, but CBS News reported that 18 bodies had been recovered from the river. Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas said that it was “really hard when you lose probably over 60 Kansans simultaneously ... When one person dies, it’s a tragedy, but when many, many, many people die, it’s an unbearable sorrow. It’s a heartbreak beyond measure.” There were conflicting reports on whether survivors had been found, and Washington DC mayor Muriel Bowser said that she would not be giving any further details at a press conference less than an hour ago. Temperatures in the area were below freezing, and any length of time spent in the water would be extremely dangerous for anyone who survived the initial incident, with hypothermia setting in quickly in very cold water. A large rescue operation got underway swiftly, with the first units arriving on the scene about 10 minutes after the explosion. Inflatable boats and dive teams searched the site, with helicopters circling above, and large floodlights illuminating the scene from the shore. About 300 responders were involved in the search. The operations were made more difficult by strong gusts of wind as well as the cold. Washington DC fire and emergency medical services chief John Donnelly said: “The challenges are access … there is wind, there [are] pieces of ice out there, so it’s just dangerous and hard to work in, and because there’s not a lot of lights you’re out there searching every square inch of space to see if you can find anybody. Divers are doing the same thing in the water – the water is dark, it is murky, and that is a very tough condition for them to dive in.” The airport is expected to be closed until 11am today. The search for those who were aboard the plane is likely to continue for multiple days, with an investigation taking longer, fire chief Donnelly said. What have political leaders said? Donald Trump said that he had been “fully briefed on this terrible accident” and said of the passengers: “May God bless their souls.” Later, he posted on his Truth Social platform that “this is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented”. He added: “The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane?” It was not clear if those comments were based on any official briefing about the incident. Trump’s newly installed agency leaders also responded to the crash. Pete Hegseth, the new defence secretary, said that his department was “actively monitoring” the situation. Transportation secretary Sean Duffy said that he was “at the FAA HQ and closely monitoring the situation”. He said at a press conference later: “The tragedy that we’re going to deal with with this recovery I think is touching everyone’s hearts … everyone here is thinking and praying for those who have potentially lost a loved one.” At the same press conference, mayor Bowser said that all of Washington was mourning “for the families who are experiencing loss tonight”. She said that American Airlines officials were at Reagan National Airport and speaking to those who had family members aboard the flight. What have eyewitnesses said? Ari Schulman, who was driving home when the incident happened, described a “stream of sparks” overhead. “Initially I saw the plane and it looked fine, normal. It was right about to head over land,” he told CNN. “Three seconds later, and at that point it was banked all the way to the right … I could see the underside of it, it was lit up a very bright yellow, and there was a stream of sparks underneath it. It looked like a Roman candle.” Mark Poloncarz, who was waiting to catch a flight to New York at the airport, said that there was an announcement that there would be no flights landing or taking off about a minute after he saw emergency vehicles moving outside the terminal. “We started to see a lot of emergency vehicles heading towards the river,” he told the Associated Press. “When flights get delayed, people get aggravated and upset. But there was no one getting aggravated or upset because I think we all realized pretty quickly the magnitude of what occurred. The terminal grew pretty quiet. There was a lot of sadness.” | 