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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
American Airlines Jet Crashes Midair With Black Hawk Chopper; Passenger Aircraft Crashes Over Potomac River Near Reagan; 60 Passengers, 4 Crew On Board In Plane Collision With Black Hawk; CNN Covers The Midair Collision Incident Over Potomac. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 29, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Abby Phillip in New York. You are watching special live coverage. I'm coming to you now with some major breaking news as we hit the top of the hour in Washington, D.C. We've learned that a plane is now down in the Potomac River. A regional jet collided with a military helicopter as it was on approach to Runway 33 at Reagan National Airport.
The details we know coming from three short paragraphs just put out by the Federal Aviation Agency. The jet apparently departed from Wichita, Kansas. It was a PSA Airlines flight number 5342 flying for American Airlines. The helicopter was a Swarovski H-60. The NTSB will take the lead in the investigation to figure out how all of this happened.
But we do right now have some new video, an Earth cam video of the collision happening in midair. You see there a ball of light clearly exploding above the city. D.C. Police and search rescue operations are on the scene as we speak.
Let's get right to CNN's Pete Muntean. Pete, you have been on the air for most of the last hour talking about how extraordinary this is. This is a commercial airline colliding midair with a Black Hawk helicopter just outside of the nation's capital. What more do we know about what happened here?
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: This, clearly, Abby, will be a tragedy that will change aviation. Mark my words now. You are looking now at the incredible response there on the shores of the Potomac River. That is the scene apparently from the air looking eastbound toward Reagan National Airport. You can see the terminal and gates in the background, in the foreground there. You can see all of the police, crash, fire, rescue response on the banks of the Potomac.
This is really staggering that this has happened and there have been close call after close call involving commercial flights on the runways of commercial airports, major airports in the U.S., an incident -- a spate of incidents that really took off in 2023. None of them ending up occurring with a midair collision like we have seen here.
The fact that this involved not only a commercial flight, which is equipped from top to bottom with anti-collision technology, something called TCAS, Traffic Collision Avoidance System, mandated by the FAA in most commercial airliners since the early 90s, but also the pilots are well-trained. The aviation system, commercial aviation in the U.S., is the gold standard for safety. We are the example for every other country. There has not been a significant crash with fatalities, and we do not know if there are fatalities here, in the U.S. involving a commercial flight since the Colgan Air crash of 2009, led to sweeping changes in regulation and pilot experience requirements.
The fact that this happened in D.C. over near Reagan National Airport, some of the busiest airspace in the country and one of the single busiest runways in the national airspace system, is really pretty incredible. Airlines share the airspace with so many helicopters that fly over the District, Maryland, and Virginia, not only police, but also so many military helicopters, the fact that this also involved a Black Hawk helicopter. You are probably familiar with it. They're very significant, very complicated pieces of equipment. That will be something that investigators will really have to look into, where was the crew of the helicopter looking at the time of this incident, what was the route they were taking.
We know pretty well from flight tracking data from FlightRadar24 and beyond that this flight from Wichita, Kansas, left at 522 Central Time was on its way to Reagan National Airport in DC, slated to land. about ten to 9:00 Eastern Time, 8:48 Eastern Time.
And this flight was lined up to land on runway one. That is the runway facing to the north at Reagan National Airport on the Mount Vernon approach from the south and then swung out over the western side of Maryland near DC-295 on what is called the 33 Circle to land approach, that's landing to the northwest. That's a slightly shorter runway than the main runway that bisects Reagan National Airport, north and south.
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And the reason for that often is to try and make it so the controllers in the air traffic control tower can fit more planes in and keep the proper distance from plane to plane.
This is so significant, because there has not been a major incident in the U.S. in a very long time involving a commercial flight. There has not been one that involves a plane essentially in the water here. And now the emergency crews are there. You can see the boats in the water of the Potomac. I've spoken to a source who is there at Reagan National Airport. He says that there are helicopters in the air with searchlights looking in the Potomac. To me, in the video, there is nothing apparent there that looks like an airplane.
And so the water temperature right now in the Potomac, we have broken the streak of frigid temperatures here. But the water temperature is still very cold, and you can still get hypothermic really quick. It's about 42 degrees.
This commercial flight is not exactly small. It's one of the smaller planes that you may have been on but this was not a small plane. This is not a Cessna or a Beechcraft. This is a 60 to 70-seat commercial airliner. You'd buy a ticket on it from American Airlines. The flight is operated by a regional subcarrier called PSA Airlines. This is often where newer commercial pilots before going to the major airlines cut their teeth. But don't get me wrong. Many are very experienced.
So, this is a really big question here for investigators as how the accident chain and sequence was able to build. And this is something that aviation experts have warned about over and over again, especially as we saw these runway incursion near-collisions take off in 2023 that the holes in the Swiss cheese they call it could line up and lead to tragedy.
We are apparently witnessing what is likely the biggest commercial airliner crash in the United States in the last two decades.
PHILLIP: You know, Pete, as you were just talking there, we just got some new information. Not a whole lot of information coming out as this is developing, but D.C. Fire and Police say that the first calls that they got about this accident came in around 8:53 P.M tonight, so just over an hour and 10 or 15 minutes from before now. And so far, they say they have received no confirmed information about casualties as a result of this crash.
But I just want to underscore another part of what you were just saying there. Initially, when this news broke, there was talk of a small plane. But when we talk about a small plane in the context of a commercial aircraft, this is a plane that has a max configuration of about 76 seats.
MUNTEAN: That's right.
PHILLIP: There are dozens -- could be dozens of people aboard. We don't know yet how many were aboard. And as you mentioned, it has been extremely cold in Washington these last few weeks and across the eastern seaboard. The water is cold. And as we saw from that video, I think we can play it again, that video that we have of the crash, this is a crash that seemed to have occurred well in the skies.
So, you know, where to even begin, Pete, in terms of the rescue operation that might be underway?
MUNTEAN: I want to talk about the video first because this is something that is so going to be -- I hope we can recue that because it was, it'll be so key for investigators to show this moment of the crash and you could see the fireball there, which looks to me this is a camera on the Virginia side of the Potomac River looking south, those are the bridges, the Memorial and 14th Street Bridge that connect Virginia to the district.
The fireball there is really significant. And we were showing what appeared to be a light coming from left to right and then another light, presumably this regional jet operated by PSA for American Airlines coming into land on Runway 33, so approaching from the southwest to the northwest.
There are some significant blind spots, even in a helicopter and a commercial flight, that can really make things quite difficult to see. Helicopters and helicopter pilots are often looking and flying in primarily reference to the ground. And they're often at quite low altitude. So, it looked to me like that collision happened at maybe two or three hundred feet, maybe even less.
And so because of the condition of the plane coming into land and descending, it's very, very possible that they did not see the helicopter approaching, which would have been from their right to left.
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It is a very busy chunk of airspace in the D.C. area. Not only are commercial flights taking off and landing at all hours at National Airport but also helicopters are flying north and south. That is a very popular helicopter route. I'm pretty sure it's called the helicopter route one that takes flights from south of D.C. and Prince George's County helicopters up north towards the Potomac River, toward Carderock and beyond in Montgomery County, Maryland.
So, this is something that investigators are really going to have to look at and they're going to want to see video just like the ones -- the pieces of video that we have shown. This is an emergency response that is far and wide. Not only are there crash fire rescue teams at commercial airports across the country, there is a specific crash fire rescue team from the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority that has rescue boats that they could launch into the water for something like this. D.C. Fire has rescue boats that they -- I know that they have launched into the water for something like this. And then also there is it seems like a response not only from Maryland and D.C., but also Virginia. We saw fire boats being launched from Fairfax County, which is essentially a county away from where this is.
So, this is a real all-hands-on-deck situation to try and figure out if there are people in the water and if there are survivors here. But hypothermia, when the water is 40 or 42 degrees, like it is now, and today was a warm day for the last few days of D.C., it was about 50 degrees at the high today, hypothermia can set in a very short period of time. We're talking minutes.
And so we are in the golden hour now for rescuers to try and figure out if there are people in the water and if they can be rescued. There is some precedent here. Air Florida Flight 90 back in 1982 took off from Reagan National Airport in essentially a snowstorm and hit one of the bridges that connects Virginia and D.C. And there was a dramatic and awful plunge of all of the passengers on board that flight and the crew and not to mention folks on the bridge as well. And there were very, very few survivors. That response was hampered by the fact that there was another incident not too far away on the metro, on D.C.'s metro system, and it was also in the middle of a snowstorm.
Thankfully tonight, it is a roughly clear night and there is not weather hampering this but the cold and the dark are the biggest enemies right now of rescue crews to try and figure this out. To me, in this video. I'm not seeing anything recognizable --
PHILLIP: Yes. Pete, I'm going to interrupt you for just a moment. We just heard from the White House press secretary, Laroline Leavitt. She says that President Trump has been made aware of this crash. He's continuing to monitor it from the White House. And the Trump administration sends its thoughts and prayers to all of those involved.
But stand by for us, Pete. Audrey Ash is a CNN investigative producer. She is at the gate where this plane was supposed to arrive tonight. Audrey, tell us what's happening at the airport right now.
AUDREY ASH, CNN INVESTIGATIVE PRODUCER: Yes, Abby, I'm here at the gate where, you know, all of these riders were supposed to get off and it essentially is what you imagine. You can see all of the lights that are flashing in the distance. You have a clear shot from the gate to see everything that's happening. There have been some American Airlines flight attendants here who have been obviously distraught, who confirmed to me that this was the flight from Wichita and that they don't know any further details, that they're worried about their co-workers and all the people that were on the flight.
Flights all around have been canceled. They've shut down basically the entire airport. And so everyone is trying to get a new flight out of here, although it's looking obviously unlikely for tonight. There have been some passengers that have been talking about, you know, we were supposed to take off in my own plane. We were already on the tarmac and the door had closed. Everyone was on airplane mode and the pilot told us, you know, you're going to have to deplane. I don't think you're going to get a flight for the rest of the night. So, that's what this scene looks like here.
PHILLIP: Yes. Is there a law enforcement presence that you can see from where you are, either in the airport or, you know, on the tarmac outside of the airport?
ASH: Yes. So, not within the airport, actually within the airport, it doesn't seem that much different beyond everyone watching the scene. But out on the tarmac, I mean, there are just hundreds of lights when we were getting off the plane, there were police officers, police cars that were driving down the tarmac towards the scene of the crash.
It looks like -- I mean, it looks like every emergency vehicle that could possibly be there from D.C. is currently at the scene.
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It's just the entire horizon is covered with lights.
PHILLIP: Yes. And just for folks who are joining us, I mean, the Washington National Airport, Reagan National Airport, is one of the busiest airports in the country in this region, and it is closed now. Every flight has stopped coming in. No flights are leaving. The entire response right now is on trying to rescue anyone who can be rescued from this devastating crash.
Audrey, thank you very much for giving us that information. Stand by for us.
David Soucie, CNN's safety analyst and former FAA safety inspector, is with us as well. David, I want to talk to you about all the reasons why these types of crashes have been extraordinarily rare, not just crashes involving commercial aircrafts, but crashes between aircrafts. The last one that we had in 2009, a plane crashed into a home. And after that, it set off a major change to the industry. What do you think could have caused this to happen after all of those changes and all of the safety regulations that are in place for airlines?
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, it is baffling the fact that we've gone so many years since 2009 without any kind of an accident like this. We've had a lot of talk. We've talked many times about how many near misses there are and the technology. Near misses are near misses. They're really near collisions, I guess. But this is different. This is very different because it's military and commercial together on the same airport, and that can create problems when you communicate between those two. They do have different methods, different procedures, and that can create some vulnerabilities for this type of accident to happen.
Although there's been so many advancements over the last 40 years. I recall the January 13th in 1982, the accident of Flight 90 or Florida Flight 90 into the Potomac almost exactly to the day where we're maybe within a week or two of that accident 42 years ago. And when I worked in Washington, D.C. with the FAA, that accident was used to demonstrate to us, to show to us again and again, all the things that can happen on an aircraft crash, and it was almost exactly in the same area. The 14th Street Bridge is where that one crashed.
But I wanted to point out that there were four survivors plus the crew. There was a couple of crew members that were rescued. And that's what the focus is right now. You see all these lights out there, all those boats out there. They are looking for survivors. This water is deadly cold. It's very cold. You cannot survive very long. But nonetheless, there are survivors in this scenario, so they're going to make sure that they focus on that before they even try to determine what the cause is right now before they're focused on just trying to find some survivors.
PHILLIP: CNN's Brian Todd is at the scene. Stand by for us, David, for a second. Brian, tell us what you're seeing where you are.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Okay, Abby. We're at a place called Gravely Point, which is a park adjacent to Reagan National Airport. Behind me are some emergency vehicles. There were a lot more of them here just a moment ago.
I'll set the scene for you. You see Reagan Airport over there to your right. You see some police vehicles here just in the foreground. But if our photojournalist, David Brooke (ph), can zoom in beyond that, you can see the entirety of the immediate response in the background there or in the distance there with all of those flashing lights. We believe that is approximately the area where this plane went down.
We can tell you that there were just a ton of emergency vehicles staging from this area right here and putting boats in the water not long ago, but they have since vacated very quickly and are heading north on the G.W. Parkway away from this area here. You can see some of them actually heading south on the parkway, but many of them were heading north until just a second ago. If they're heading south, that's closer to the area where we believe this plane went down. So, you can see them going in that direction now.
So, let's swing the camera back over here, David, and we can again kind of give you whatever view we can give you from here, which, unfortunately, folks, it isn't great right now, but we're going to try to get closer, but that is the area right approximately where this plane went down.
Here's what we can tell you right now. According to officials, they tell us that this was an American Airlines Flight 5342 operated by PSA Airlines, a small aircraft. This was coming from Wichita, Kansas. D.C. Police and Fire officials tell us there is no confirmed information on casualties now, but, of course, it's very early on in the search and rescue operation.
Two U.S. defense officials, Abby, have told us tonight that it was an Army Black Hawk helicopter which collided, which, with this plane, causing this plane to go down in this area right here.
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That is what we can tell you, some frantic activity here from Gravely Point and from this area near Reagan National Airport. We're going to try to get a little bit closer, of course, to get more information.
PHILLIP: I'm hearing actually what sounds like a picking up of the siren activity. What's your sense of what -- where are they headed? And has that increase in just in the last couple of minutes since you and I've been talking?
TODD: Well, the ones that you're hearing now, Abby, they're headed south on G.W. Parkway, which is going to take them south beyond Reagan National Airport and probably, presumably, closer to a staging area on land where they can get to that area where the flashing lights are on the water. So, that is where they're going. The direction that our camera is pointed in now, south along the Potomac River, Reagan National Airport is there to your right. The river is just ahead of you, even though you can't see it, and it's flowing south straight ahead. So, that's where those vehicles were going.
And, again, at this staging area where we are now, there is water just behind us and a place where you can stage boats, and that's where they were putting in boats a short time ago. But then all these emergency vehicles, and there must have been dozens of them here, they quickly took off, headed north on G.W. Parkway to make a U-turn and go south. So, that is where they're going probably, I'd say, maybe three miles south. They have to go past the airport and stage in the water -- stage on the water south of Reagan National Airport, I think, to get closer to where that plane went down over there.
PHILLIP: All right. Brian Todd, we'll be back with you in just a few moments. Stand by for us.
Natasha Bertrand, our national security correspondent, is joining me now. Natasha, this is now, we are learning, an operation that involves the military. There was a military aircraft involved. What else are you hearing from your sources about what happened here?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Abby. The information right now is extremely limited. The Army is trying to get more information about just what happened here. But we are told, according to two U.S. defense officials, that this was an Army Black Hawk that was involved in this midair collision with this passenger aircraft. And that is extremely significant, because if you live in Washington, D.C., you see these Black Hawks flying around all the time. It is extremely common for them to be flying around, going in and out of Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, which is just across the river.
They can carry a significant amount of weight, a large number of people relatively to other helicopters. They can carry up to 14 people. And so something really had to have gone very, very wrong here for them to be involved in an accident just because, again, it is so common to see them flying around. It is such a heavily kind of traffic area with military helicopters, with D.C. Police helicopters. This is not something obviously that happens.
But, again, the Army is really scrambling to get additional information at this point as to what exactly happened. The only thing we can confirm for certain now, according to two U.S. defense officials, is that this was an Army Black Hawk that collided with this passenger aircraft, Abby.
PHILLIP: All right. Natasha, stand by for us. We'll be back with you as the evening goes on.
I want to go now to Ari Schulman. He is a witness to this aircraft crash. Ari, thanks for joining us. First of all, tell us where were you when you saw this happen?
ARI SCHULMAN, WITNESSED PLANE CRASH NEAR REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT: I was driving south on the George Washington Parkway, which is the highway that runs from D.C. to Alexandria, and it runs right by the airport. If you're going to the airport, You take that highway.
PHILLIP: And what did you see? And you were driving. You see this thing happen. What did it look like to you?
SCHULMAN: I saw only about two seconds of it, but I believe that what I saw was the collision. So, I was headed south going straight. The airport was off to my left. I was looking at the line of planes coming in because that highway lines up almost exactly what the line of planes coming into land. It's just off to the right a little bit.
So, I was driving home and I always watch that line of planes coming in. I saw how evenly spaced apart they were, and I thought there might be one right off to my left right about to land. It looked like the spacing was right. So, I looked off and I saw -- initially, I saw the plane and it looked fine and normal. It was right about to head over land, maybe 120 feet above the water. It looked like a fairly, you know, a small end, but normal size passenger jet and it looked normal. It was a level.
So, I looked back at the road and then I looked back again just to see if I could maybe see it land, and this was three seconds later. And at that point, it was banked all the way to the right, I would say, maybe pass the right, past 90 degrees. 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, if you ever hold one of those on the 4th of July, but it was much, much bigger than that. It was high off the ground.
I didn't see anything beyond that.
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I didn't see any helicopter. It's a very, very dark night out tonight. So, anything that's not illuminated, you can't really see. So, I didn't see the other aircraft, but I saw the plane banking at an angle that a plane shouldn't bank. And I saw sparks flying.
PHILLIP: Wow. You know, that drive that so many Washingtonians do, I've driven that many times myself. And those planes, as you said, it's extremely normal to see tons and tons of aircraft landing all the time.
So, you see this happening. You see the sparks flying. What happened next? What did you do next?
SCHULMAN: So I was turning my head to the left and I was driving, right? So, I looked at this for it couldn't have been more than two seconds. And then I needed to look back at the road. And then I looked back again. I wondered if I was going to see an explosion, a crash into the ground. I was trying to decide if I should call 911. This is all happening very, very quickly. So, you know, I wasn't thinking entirely rationally.
But I turned back and I didn't see anything. I didn't see a plane hit the ground. I didn't see flames or an explosion or smoke. I didn't see emergency lights. It was so brief what I saw that I actually wondered for a moment if I had hallucinated it in some way.
I kept driving. And just a few seconds later, I was too far along to be able to turn my head back and see the airport anymore. So, I looped back around, I U-turned on the highway to go back and see if I could see anything. And when I turned back north and drove by the same point, I still didn't see anything, no flames, no crash, no nothing.
PHILLIP: All right. Ari Schulman, thank you very much for joining us. And, honestly, I'm so sorry that you actually witnessed this happen.
I want to go now to Pete Muntean. Pete, you've got some breaking news for us.
MUNTEAN: We just have this in from American Airlines. Spokesperson Sarah Jantz tells me, on board this flight American Airlines Flight 55 -- sorry, 5342, there were 60 passengers on board and 4 crew. This was not a small airplane. This was a regional jet, a flight flying from Wichita, Kansas, into Reagan National Airport, just outside of D.C., on the Virginia side. So, there were many people on board, very likely that this was a full flight. A CRJ-700 like this can seat between 60 and 70 people depending on the configuration, depending on what the airline orders.
Right now, there is a very frantic search in the Potomac River right now, and Noah Gray of D.C. Fire tells me they have every resource out there that they possibly can, every resource working as hard as they can to do what they can.
There are several helicopters in the air right now, not only from Prince George's County, but also from Metropolitan Police Department in the District of Columbia. And you can see all of the boats and all of the response there on the very dark Potomac right now, water temperature bout 42 degrees. Hypothermia sets in only minutes.
It is very clear now that this, happened as a midair collision involving a Black Hawk helicopter from the United States Army and this regional jet operated by PSA Airlines on behalf of American Airlines. That flight was coming in from the south initially lined up for Reagan National Airport Runway 1, that's to the north, and then swung out to the east, apparently lining up with Runway 33 there at Reagan National Airport, the slightly shorter runway used by slightly smaller planes. But make no mistake, this was a small airplane, and the new reporting we have from American Airlines, 60 people on board this plane, and 4 crew.
This is an area, a slice of airspace, that is heavily congested not only with planes taking off and landing from Reagan National Airport, climbing and descending all of the time, but also heavily congested with helicopters from the United States government, the military, and local police departments. There are helicopter routes that crisscross through the airspace, that essentially coexist with the airliners that are coming in to land.
This looks to me like a shot from WJLA of the G.W. Parkway. That looks like it is just on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, not far from Reagan National Airport. And crews have been essentially watching this drama play out by the minute. Of course, they are hoping that people will be able to be plucked from the Potomac. But we know that there were many people on board this flight, which was very, very nearly full.
PHILLIP: And, Pete, as we just heard from an eyewitness who saw the collision happen in just seconds, he said he didn't see any evidence.
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You've been saying -- you've been looking at this picture. You don't see a plane. He didn't see any smoke. He didn't see a plane in the water. He -- it was so dark. He couldn't see anything but there was also not a lot of signs of what happened to the plane after that collision occurred.
And so, this is going to be the kind of thing that the search and rescue teams are desperately trying to determine exactly where this plane is, exactly where the people on the plane are, and how to get them out of this water. Pete, stand by for us, as you continue to do your excellent reporting on this story.
Mary Schiavo is with us. She's a CNN transportation analyst. Mary, so much to ask you about this but one of the things about the D.C. area is just how incredibly tightly controlled this airspace is. You know, the post 911 world for D.C., is such that, really, very few aircrafts can be in the air that are not explicitly, not -- no aircrafts could be in the air that are not explicitly authorized.
It's incredibly tightly controlled but it's also incredibly congested. So when you have a military aircraft like this in the same area as commercial flights, what are some of the problems that could arise from that?
MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER I.G. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Well, yeah. And you have said it very correctly. Now, the D.C., Reagan National Airport, you must be under air traffic control. It is all instrument control. Planes can't traverse on what they call visual aircraft rules.
But, also, everyone knows that. I mean, everyone knows the routes the D.C. airport, the runways, and that it is entirely controlled by air traffic control. So to traverse that airspace legally and correctly, obviously, they would have to have clearance. They would have to have be under -- they should be under control.
Now, there are certain areas, certain flight levels, altitudes, if you will, that are reserved for helicopters, that are reserved for other operations. But off the ends of those runways, it is total control and everyone who operates in D.C. area knows it very well. And I just literally just landed at DCA at about 7:30 on a PSA flight operated by PSA for American Airlines.
It was busy tonight but the planes weren't full. The plane I was on wasn't full but there was lots of traffic. The flight was actually a little bit late because of the traffic. But again, everyone knows that about the D.C. air space.
And so, this was one of the concerns literally decades ago when Dulles Airport was opened. Back then, the agreement was to fund and pay for an open Dulles is that Washington National was supposed to close when Dulles opened. And, of course, the hue and cry for obvious reasons, it's a very popular airport. It's very convenient.
And, you know, everyone in the government loves to use it and it did not close. And I'm sure that's part of the discussion. The most important discussion, of course, is -- is searching for the -- the passengers and -- and the investigation of what happened. But this will renew the issue of is this air space reasonable and correct, and is these -- does DCA still make sense?
I don't see anyone realistically, closing it, but there was certainly maybe calls to limit the flights, to limit the -- the numbers of aircraft that can operate there. But really, we don't know enough yet to know was the helicopter properly controlled? Was it on the flight path? Was the airline, for any reason, not on its flight path?
Now, when I landed about 7:30 there, it was windy. There was a bit of chop in the air, but wasn't really anything that would cause, difficulty in operations. But this will renew the debate again about what about Reagan National, is it too close, too congested, too many aircraft, too many operations and how much, you know, how many aircraft can we put in this very small space? But again, DCA is very, very popular --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
SCHIAVO: -- for obvious reasons. It's convenient.
PHILLIP: It is. It is extremely convenient and -- and there are a lot of people who need to get in and out of D.C. very quickly which is why they use that airport. Mary, I -- I have one more question for you. Look, it's January 29th. We are just nine days out from a presidential transition and administrative transition.
The FAA administrator resigned at the end of the Biden administration, so there is no permanent confirmed FAA administrator right now. This is going to be a time when there's going to be a lot of public communication.
SCHIAVO: Right.
PHILLIP: And a lot of investigation of what happened here. What do you anticipate this transition period is going to mean for what happens today and tomorrow and in the coming days as -- as we find out what happened here?
SCHIAVO: Well, the transition period for aviation, not just in the D.C. area, but for all of the United States was extremely important. We have so many aviation issues brewing right now, and there's been, you know, criticism of our national -- and our international aviation policy, routes, access to aviation, the constant roller coaster of hiring and firing of pilots. Who has access? What are the routes? What are we going to do to get -- to get good service?
And throw in on top of that, you know, things like, you know, the drone traffic. And so, I think it's very important. But first and foremost is this -- these operations were entirely under the control of air traffic controllers. This is controlled airspace.
And, of course, air traffic controllers do not come and go with a change of political administration. You know, we have a, fortunately, a very, you know, highly trained career cadre of air traffic controllers, and that's important.
So, the politics of the situation should have had no impact whatsoever on the air traffic controllers and the good, you know, good positive air traffic control. The question will be is how did separation get lost? How did these planes get so close to each other? And without a doubt, the NTSB will get to the bottom of this, you know, really quickly because this, civilian aircraft, although it's, you know, the CRJ's, some of them do have some years on them. Some of them are not the newest planes out there, but it will have, of
course, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data reporter. And, you know, I think that will capture what occurred very quickly. The NTSB will have a preliminary report probably within a couple days. They will have it.
PHILLIP: Yeah. All right. Mary, stand by for us. And just in case, you are joining us here on CNN. Here's what we know about this unfolding situation. An American Airlines regional jet has collided midair with a military Blackhawk helicopter in the Washington D.C. area. This collision happened over the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport.
Sixty passengers were on board according to American Airlines, four crew members. Search and rescue teams are now on-site. You can see there, just the sheer force and size of the response to this, what is bound to be an incredible tragedy just outside of the nation's capital.
With us now, CNN military analyst, Cedric Leighton. As -- Colonel Leighton, this situation involving a military aircraft, with the D.C. area having actually quite a lot of bases in that area, it seems so common that these kinds of aircrafts are in close proximity with commercial aircrafts. Have you ever seen anything come close to what we now know happened here?
CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: No. Not at all, Abby. And, you know, yes, you're absolutely right. There is a lot of military traffic as well as a lot of civilian traffic, here in the D.C. area. And one of the things to note is that there's a lot of VIP transport that goes on between the different military bases and the Pentagon.
So, one of the possibilities here is that there's some indication that this may be a VIP transport helicopter. UH-60s are used for that. If it was a VIP transport helicopter, that would have come from the 12th aviation battalion at Fort Belvoir, which is near -- near Washington, specifically, Davidson Army Airfield.
And that would have been, really the -- the base from which they use to -- to transport the -- you know, to use those helicopters. And they will then go around, to, you know, various bases such as, Bowling, Anacostia, the Pentagon, Andrews, Joint Base Andrews, and, some of the other bases in and around this area.
So, anything like this is extremely rare. There are a lot of very good flight control procedures that are used between -- the air traffic control procedures that are used between the civilian aircraft and military aircraft. And incidents like this are, basically unheard of in at least in recent years. And, you know, so if -- if this does turn out to be what, you know, a craft with military aircraft like we think it is, that is a, not only a very rare occurrence, very unusual one, for the -- for this particular area.
PHILLIP: What you just revealed there that these aircrafts, these, Black Hawk helicopters can often be used for VIP transport, is some new and really astonishing information that adds another dimension to what we don't know here in in this incident. Colonel Leighton, thank you for that and stand by for us. Coming up next, is Peter -- Gabe -- Gabe Cohen is with us. He's at Reagan National Airport.
[22:40:00]
Gabe, you're inside the airport is my understanding. What are you hearing about the response there?
GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So, Abby, we're inside the airport because we are expecting potentially an update here on the crash and the response in this entire situation here in the next little bit.
I can tell you though, I -- I've spoken with a source, a law enforcement source here in the D.C. area who is at the scene right now, who painted a really grim picture, of what they're looking at saying that at least part of the plane is underwater. We don't know exactly how much of it. They have divers on the way to the scene. They're really frantically searching for survivors at the moment.
But just driving around, we --we drove the entire area around the Potomac, essentially, the Maryland side, the Virginia side, and you could see not just dozens and dozens of law enforcement vehicles, but also even officers on one of the bridges in the area shining flashlights into the water, just looking for any signs of anyone who might have come off the aircraft, presumably. It's what they were looking for.
You can tell even from where we are, Abby, just looking across the river at what that urgent scene looks like. We've seen some of those wide angle pictures of the response, just how many vehicles and responders are there.
But, again, we are now learning, yeah, the plane is -- is in the water. At least part of it is submerged under the water. My source who was there couldn't exactly say how much of it, and, again, it is an urgent, urgent scene. They have divers heading there now, and they're just hoping and -- and praying for the best.
PHILLIP: That is some new and important information there. A part of the aircraft, in the water, part of it apparently out of the water, which I think also tells us quite a lot. Thank you very much for that report.
Peter Goelz is with us now. He's a former NTSB managing director. Peter, thanks for being with us. Walk us through the investigative part of this. What is happening on the ground right now as it's now been almost two hours since this incident occurred?
PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: Well, the NTSB headquarters is less than 2 miles from the accident scene. So my guess is there -- and there are two teams that will be launched from the NTSB. The first is the well-known investigative team, and my guess is there are investigators on scene already.
The chairman of the agency is likely to be on scene shortly, and the investigation, they will be looking for a hangar to start moving parts to. They will be doing the nuts and bolts to get this investigation off the ground as soon as it's possible at first light. But the second and very important team that has been launched is the NTSB family assistance team.
Following the 1996 TWA accident off of Long Island, the president and the Congress tasked the NTSB with overseeing family assistance. And they have a team that will launch, that will work with American Airlines, that will work with, DCA, with Reagan National to make sure that the family members are being treated, you know, as well as can be done under these terrible circumstances.
The commitment the NTSB makes to family members is they get the information first. So, once the search and rescue portion of -- of this terrible response is over, then family members will be getting briefed by the NTSB on a very regular basis. But, the NTSB has probably got 30 people mobilized and --and headed in the, if not on scene, headed there shortly.
PHILLIP: You know, Peter, I appreciate you bringing that up, and the families involved here, both the crew ---
GOELZ: Right.
PHILLIP: -- and the passengers. It's extremely important what they might be going through tonight, the uncertainty, the not knowing. We don't know anything at all as we speak here about any casualties in this -- this crash, but these moments are terrifying for those families.
GOELZ: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: Peter, stand by for us. I want to go back to Pete Muntean. Pete, you have some new information. What are you learning?
MUNTEAN: This is the new information from our Natasha Bertrand and Haley Britzky at the Pentagon that this Blackhawk helicopter that was involved in this midair collision, with this regional jet flight by American Airlines was carrying three members of the United States military on board, but no VIPs. Black Hawks are a very common sight in the airspace over Washington D.C., shuttling VIPs to and from places like the Pentagon.
[22:45:00]
Also Fort Belvoir, that is where a lot of these military helicopters are based, Davidson Army Airfield, just south of D.C. on Interstate 395. So again, we now know the totality, the full counts of the people involved in this crash. American Airlines confirms to us that there were 60 passengers on board this flight.
American Airlines, flight 53, 42 from Wichita, Kansas was slated to land at Reagan National Airport about 10 to nine eastern time. And we now know that there were four crew on board that flight and that -- that flight collided with this Blackhawk helicopter carrying three people on board. This is very clearly a tragedy no matter how you slice it. An
incredible failure of the systems that are on board commercial airliners mandated since the nineties. The rules in aviation are written in blood and pretty much every commercial airliner in the U.S. has something on board called TCAS -- Traffic Collision Avoidance System.
TCAS tells the pilots when there is an impending collision with another airplane or in this case, a helicopter providing an oral warning for the pilot saying climb, climb now, descend, descend now, even in that tone of voice to make sure that the pilots get the pure urgency of the situation unfolding in front of them.
This is an incredible response by search and rescue crews in the Potomac River. This is a moonless night in the nation's capital. They're incredibly hampered by the cold temperatures, the water temperature right now, according to our weather team, and I want to pull this up again.
And today, it was about 50 degrees out, air temperature wise, but the Potomac River about 35 degrees, meaning hypothermia can set in in a matter of minutes. It is a race against the clock. This is a real-life drama taking place right now, just outside of the nation's capital on the Potomac River at one of the busiest runways in the country, runway 1, Reagan National Airport.
It's what this flight was initially lined up to land on and then swung out to the east over the shores of the Potomac on the Maryland side to line up with runway 33, a tactic commonly used by air traffic controllers to keep the pace and flow of airplanes up.
You can see all of the lights there on the Potomac right now, not only on land but also on water. Police boats have been -- being put in the water far and wide here in the nation's capital, not only on the Virginia side, but also on the Maryland side.
You can also see the lights of helicopters searching there. Perhaps in a horrible piece of irony, the -- the United States Park Police, which were instrumental in making heroic rescues, after the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 back in 1982.
That flight went sailing off the end of runway 1 and into the 14th Street Bridge that connects, Virginia and Maryland on a frigid day, in January of -- of 1982. Those helicopter crews were able to pluck people from the water.
But we now know that there are essentially 67 people in total involved here. Three members of the military onboard the Black Hawk helicopter, 64 people onboard this American Airlines flight operated by PSA. The video is pretty telling and that is something that investigators will look at and scour for from folks not only on maybe taking this on their cell phones, but also from tower cams like we have seen.
You can see in some of the video what appears to be the helicopter approaching from this flight's perspective. It's on the final approach to runway 33 to the northwest. This helicopter was approaching slightly low and from right to left. If you can take me live for a second, I can sort of demonstrate with my hands, what the -- the crews, were and were not able to see.
And so the helicopter, the Blackhawk helicopter appeared to be coming, from the right of the commercial flight that was descending into runway 33. It's a particularly perilous situation for pilots because they can often, not see very well below them as helicopter crews are often looking low -- looking at the ground flying primarily in reference to the ground.
Especially in a very critical phase of flying as a crew is descending, making that final critical approach to landing, they are focused primarily on the runway and primarily on their instruments. They're not necessarily looking left and right scanning for other traffic.
This may be something where the crew simply just did not have the ability to see the helicopter and the situation unfolding in front of them. This is something that aviation experts have warned me about over and over since the start of 2023 when we saw --
PHILLIP: Right.
[22:50:00]
MUNTEAN: - these commercial, flight, mirror collisions take off, in the United States. Many of them became under the watchful eye of the National Transportation Safety Board and were the result of very sweeping probes. Those situations never involved an actual collision. What we are seeing now is the result of the warnings. And this is --
PHILLIP: It -- it very much is the worst case scenario of --
MUNTEAN: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: For decades and decades of aviation safety in this country. Natasha Bertrand is with us now with some new information about the military side of this collision. We also, by the way, have some images of this Black Hawk chopper from the army website, just to give you a sense of what kind of aircraft this is. This is a very common aircraft that it - that flies around in the D.C. area as you've been hearing all of our guests say tonight. Natasha, what more are you hearing from DOD?
BERTRAND: Yeah, Abby. So we're hearing from a U.S. Army official that this aircraft is Black Hawk, was out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Now it's unclear whether it was heading to Fort Belvoir or that it took off from Fort Belvoir, but that is the extent of the information we're getting right now.
And what that indicates to me is that this was a Black Hawk helicopter that was likely attached to the 12th Aviation Battalion, and that is based at Davidson Army Airfield at Fort Belvoir. And the 12th Aviation Battalion, interestingly, it does a lot of transportation of senior DOD and army officials. It's known as a priority air transport.
But we should be very clear here that according to an army official, there were no VIPs onboard this flight. There was no one, no senior army officials, no senior DRG officials, no senior U.S. government officials on this aircraft at the time that it collided with this passenger plane. We are told instead that it was three crew members, three U.S. Army soldiers that were on board at this Black Hawk.
So, as of right now, that is the extent of what we know. Still trying to get more information from the Pentagon, and we should note as well that the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, he tweeted that he is monitoring the situation very closely and also trying to get as much information as he can at this point, Abby.
PHILLIP: For, yeah, Fort Belvoir, not too far actually from Reagan Airport, just down the Potomac from Reagan, one of the many military bases in that area where you would have aircrafts like this flying, to and from, their bases to other bases, perhaps carrying VIPs. In this case, three crew members were on board. No VIPs on board that chopper. Natasha, thank you for that reporting.
I want to go to Miles O'Brien now. He's our aviation analyst. Miles, there's a lot to unpack here about what may have occurred. You heard Pete talking there about what the pilots may not have been able to see if they were visually trying to see another aircraft in their path.
But we also heard, from Mary Schiavo earlier tonight that this is such a controlled air space. Air traffic control, is in charge here from takeoffs and landings. What do you think should have been the case here that would have prevented these aircrafts from getting anywhere near each other upon an attempted landing here?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Abby, it's -- it's kind of amazing, it works on a good day when you think about how busy, constrained, complicated and restricted this airspace is. It -- it's -- it's a careful minuet which keeps all these aircraft from colliding with each other as we have seen, unfortunately, on this evening.
What's interesting here is the -- the two aircraft, if you look on the map horizontally, were exactly where they were supposed to be, at least horizontally. There was a -- there is a helicopter avenue, if you will, beneath the flight path to the final approach to that runway. And if everybody stays at the right altitude, nothing happens.
So, was there some distraction, in either aircraft or some confusion which put them either lower or higher than their assigned altitude, that's going to be the crux of this investigation. And a secondary issue here is just the -- the larger issue of how complicated and difficult this air space is to keep safe.
PHILLIP: Yeah. Miles, I'm going to interrupt you for just a moment. We just got in a statement from the President of the United States, Donald Trump. I'm going to read it to you. It says, "I have been fully briefed on the terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport. May God bless their souls. Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders. I am monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arrive."
[22:55:00] Miles, this is obviously going to be a major tragedy regardless of what the ultimate outcome is for this country. The fact that we now have had a commercial aircraft crash after 15 years, do you expect that this will change aviation in this country?
O'BRIEN: Accidents like this are what we call watershed accidents, Abby. They -- they do, they do change things. If you go back 16 years ago to that Colgan air crash outside of Buffalo, there were significant changes relating to crew training and qualifications, which came out of that one. You can go back and pick numerous other significant accidents over the years.
And the term, kind of a grim term, but the -- the rules, as they say at the FAA, are written in blood. And the idea here is that each time these things happen, you learn from it and try to make it safer. And -- and the fact that it has been 16 years since there has been a fatality in a commercial airliner in the United States is an extraordinary record when you consider what I was just talking about.
The complicated spaces in which all these aircraft fly, the limitations of the sizes of the airports, the strain on the air traffic control system, the lack of personnel that ATC has, the long shifts that they do -- it's -- it's extraordinary, how well it works actually.
And, on this night, we pause and -- and think of those who lost lives here and hope that their -- their loss does lead to some measure of additional safety for the rest of us.
PHILLIP: Miles O'Brien, thank you. I want to go now to CNN's Brian Todd live at the scene. Brian, tell us what you're seeing now.
TODD: All right, Abby. We have had a chance to move locations. We're now at the Dangerfield Marina, which is just south of Reagan National Airport. We're by the water. We can get a bit of a better vantage point to the scene of the accident there. We're going to a pan to the right. David Brooks, my photojournalist, is going to show you the activity there. That seems to be where the activity is concentrated on the water.
Now, just across, we're on the Virginia side. Just across the water from us is joint base Anacostia bowling. That is an air force base that is just across the river there. That appears to be the area of the water, where this crash occurred.
Now, from what we know now, it does not relate necessarily to the base itself -- this accident. What we're told by a U.S. defense official is that this was an army Black Hawk helicopter at a Fort Belvoir, Virginia that had a crew of three people on board. American Airlines has told CNN that the passenger plane that collided with that helicopter had 60 people on board and a crew of four.
Some additional information our colleague, Gabe Cohen, has from a law enforcement source that they are, basically, they have every available agency working on search and rescue operations right now in this area behind me. PHILLIP: Yeah.
TODD: That source telling Gabe Cohen that basically, they are painting a grim picture of what they're seeing, but they --
PHILLIP: Brian --
TODD: -- don't have any word on casualties yet.
PHILLIP: Brian, we just saw on the camera some aircrafts in the sky. Can you give us a sense of what kind of activity you're seeing in the skies versus what is on the water and what is on land from -- from what you can see?
TODD: From what we can see, Abby, we can see two aircraft in the skies. There is one, what appears to be a helicopter to our right hovering over the area. There's another helicopter just in the foreground above me right here. Only two aircraft in the skies at this time. There is much more activity itself.
Again, where those flashing lights are, you can imagine there must be dozens of boats in the water, dive teams, rescuers. There is no other commercial aircraft, of course, because there is a ground stop at Reagan Airport since this accident occurred earlier this evening. No planes, no passenger planes have gone in or out of the airport.
There, David, maybe you can swing to the left here because there's some other activity to the left that David can show you. That appears to be a staging area at Reagan National Airport. That's the end of the runway at Reagan National Airport staging, boats and other, craft to go, I guess, across the river and elsewhere.
But I -- we -- we do believe from the vantage point that we have now, get -- that that area to the right is where -- is at least near where the accident occurred.
PHILLP: And it certainly seems like they have large lights that are peering into the water, to that area to your right, that seems to be where they are searching. Right, Brian?
TODD: That -- that's correct, Abby. Yes. That does seem to be the area where they're searching. You know, it -- it's still kind of a relatively long way away from where we are.
[23:00:00]
We -- we have -- we do -- we do have a better vantage point than we did before. But what we also can tell you is that we were told by, some of our weather colleagues that the water temperature is 50 degrees. And of course, you know, once, you know, if -- if a person is in the water at that temperature for, you know, a significant length of time, that is -- that is, just becomes much more dangerous for the health of that person and the risk of hypothermia.
PHILLIP: Yeah. TODD: We can show you, again the aircraft in the air. You can get a better -- a little bit better view of them. David, if you can show that one helicopter hovering over there to the right and there's one to our left, as well.
So again, they've -- they've really deployed as many assets as they could to the scene here. Again, a law enforcement source telling us that they have deployed just about every available agency, law enforcement, search and rescue, fire agency that they can, to the scene, over here.
PHILLIP: Brian Todd, thank you very much for that reporting. We continue to follow this incredibly important breaking news story. A commercial airline colliding midair with a military helicopter. We have much more of CNN special live coverage tonight with Kaitlan Collins and Laura Coates right now.
