A passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided in midair over the Potomac River at Washington's Reagan National Airport. Both aircraft crashed into the river. As CBS Newsreports, citing a member of the rescue operation, at least 19 bodies of the crash victims have been pulled out of the river. No survivors have been found so far.
As Russian state-run news agency TASS reports, Russian award-winning figure skaters and coaches Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, as well as several other figure skaters of Russian descent participating in the U.S. championship, possibly including Shishkova and Naumov’s son Maxim, were among the passengers. Their identities have not yet been verified.
The plane, American Eagle Flight No. 5342, operated by PSA Airlines, was carrying a total of 60 passengers and four crew. The helicopter had three crew members on board, CNN reports. The tragedy occurred around 9 p.m. local time on Jan. 29. The Potomac River is over seven meters deep.
The search and rescue effort is underway, with responsible officials describing it as a “highly complex operation” due to the harsh environment and weather conditions. The catastrophe is America’s first commercial air crash in the past 16 years.
According to CBS News, the crashed regional jet was a Bombardier CRJ700 operated by American Airlines subsidiary PSA Airlines en route from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington, D.C. It collided with the helicopter on approach. The Black Hawk belonged to the 12th Aviation Battalion from Fort Belvoir in Virginia and was on a training flight.