A passenger jet with 60 passengers and four crew members collided with an Army helicopter while approaching Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., killing everyone on board. The collision occurred at around 9 p.m. Wednesday in a tightly controlled airspace.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the regional jet from Wichita, Kansas, was preparing to land when it met the military helicopter carrying three soldiers on a training exercise. Air traffic controllers asked the jet to divert to a shorter runway, and the pilots agreed. However, just seconds before landing, an air traffic controller told the copter to wait for the plane to pass.
NTSB investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the plane, but the cause of the collision is still under investigation.
The victims included members of the Skating Club of Boston, teenage figure skaters, college students, hunters, and parents. The helicopter was a UH-60 Black Hawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
This crash marks the deadliest US air crash since 2001, with at least 28 bodies recovered from the icy waters of the Potomac River. Federal authorities have expressed concerns about the complexity of Reagan Airport’s airspace, which has contributed to several close calls between planes in recent months.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/ronald-reagan-national-airport-aircraft-crash-9d79051a9e535bd855df5a4e5553b2e9