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CNN This Morning
American Airlines Flight Crashes Midair With Army Helicopter. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired January 30, 2025 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:34]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We have breaking news out of the nation's capital this morning. There has been a tragic mid-air collision between a passenger plane and an Army helicopter.
I am Kasie Hunt we are live here in Alexandria, Virginia. We are on the shores of the Potomac River. It's right behind me where there is a frantic search and rescue recovery operation underway.
They are still hoping to find any survivors, but the news is just not good at this hour. The plane was on its final approach to Ronald Reagan national airport last night, when the collision with a helicopter sent both of those aircrafts crashing into the Potomac River.
Rescue crews responding immediately to the scene.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DISPATCHER: Crash, crash, crash. This is alert three. Crash, crash, crash, this is alert three.
OPERATIONS: Tower, this is operations. Was that a helo and a CRJ?
TOWER: That is affirmative, helo CRJ approaching 33.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Now, more than 300 first responders and rescue crews are on the river. They are working on those search and recovery efforts.
About 60 -- there were 60 passengers and four crew members on board. It was American Airlines Flight 5342. It was coming in from Kansas. The Black Hawk helicopter had three crew members on board for a training flight at the time of the collision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY MAZEL, WITNESSED MIDAIR CRASH: We were watching the planes land and they were all lined up in a row perfectly, you know, and then we sort of saw these white flares start flying out of the sky. Its unfortunate what happened, and I'm praying for everybody who was involved in it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And just a short while ago, CNN learning that several members of the U.S. ice skating community were on board that flight from Wichita, Kansas. U.S. figure skating said in a statement that they were returning home from a national development camp. It was happening there just last week.
Joining me here now on the scene is Cedric Leighton. He is a CNN military analyst and retired Air Force colonel. We're going to be joined shortly, we hope, by Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst.
But, Cedric, lets talk about what we have learned overnight. Obviously, this crash happening around -- in the 9:00 p.m. hour last night. And ever since then, these frantic efforts have been underway, driving in here past the entrance to Ronald Reagan National Airport, you could see that it was closed.
But I think right now all questions are how could something like this happen? And I know, you know, from your military expertise, we know that this was a training flight, three crew members that the FAA was warning these pilots to watch out basically for this plane.
What do you know about how something like this could have happened?
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, AIR FORCE (RET.): Yeah. So, Casey, this is one of those times where there are terrible accidents, should not have occurred. But apparently, what happened? We don't know all the details yet, but one of the things that I've noticed in the videos that we looked at, there was a moment where the air traffic controllers told the pilots of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter if they asked them if they saw the airplane, they said they did.
And if that's the case, then you wonder if they mixed up the airplanes because there were several flights that were stacked up to come into Reagan national. Maybe they thought it was another airplane that the air traffic controller was referring to. If that's the case, then, you know, confusion could be part of this.
And when you see where it all comes together, where the UH-60 and the airplane have that fatal, fatal crash, it's pretty clear that you would think that the helicopter would have seen the plane or -- or that they would have been warned somehow. But it appears that those warning systems did not work.
And the other part of it is that the pilots were probably looking down because helicopter pilots have a tendency to look down as they as they fly, because they're looking at basically techniques that will allow them to fly what we call map of the earth, which means that you're flying along the surface of the earth just above ground level, and they train for that, and they train quite extensively for that.
[05:05:02]
The other thing that they do, of course, is train for the river navigation so that they can navigate along the rivers around here.
The helicopter, the UH-60 is based out of Fort Belvoir with the 12th Aviation Battalion, and they provide VIP transport. Luckily, no VIP is on board this helicopter, but the three crew members, of course, I -- you know, if you know this, this is obviously going to be a tragic loss. You know, based on what we what we can surmise right now.
HUNT: Incredibly tragic.
And, Cedric, forgive me for not fully understanding this. Ive watched a lot of helicopters take off and land on the south lawn of the White House as I've covered politicians throughout my time here in Washington. Is this the kind of helicopter that the president normally flies in?
LEIGHTON: No, he flies in a different kind of helicopter. He flies in what's called Marine One. That's actually a similar helicopter, but it's actually a different designation. And it has a different power plant associated with it. So it's a bigger aircraft, a bigger helicopter that the president uses.
HUNT: So this might look similar but smaller.
LEIGHTON: Much smaller.
HUNT: To the layman's eye.
LEIGHTON: To the layman's eye, look smaller.
And the thing is, these are the kind of helicopters that you would see coming in and out of the Pentagon. They also fly to all the bases around the D.C. area, the Washington, D.C. area, and they basically provide the kind of transport that general officers would use, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Potentially, and the service secretaries and people like that.
So that's the kind of VIP transport that they would be using at this particular point in time. But that squadron does a lot more than just that battalion, I should say. That does more than just flying VIPs.
HUNT: Okay, Cedric, stand by for me for just one second. I just want to take a second and reset here for anyone who may be just joining us, I know people are going to be waking up throughout the morning to this news. If you weren't aware of it before, you may have gone to bed last night in the 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time hour.
We are on the shores of the Potomac River, where this American Airlines flight, carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, collided with a Black Hawk helicopter, and both aircraft ended up in the Potomac River. This rescue, operation recovery operation is now underway.
And for those of you that may not fly into Ronald Reagan national airport on a regular basis, it's an unusual airport in that it is incredibly close to the city of Washington, D.C. and that's because, of course, members of Congress wanted an easy way to come and go from their home districts and to get into town.
So it sits right across the river from some of the most memorable landmarks in Washington, the Lincoln Memorial being one of the closest, and the Washington monument, and, of course, the Capitol building.
And these small planes, like the one that was carrying these passengers from Wichita, Kansas. There are so many of them, they used to all fly out of one gate called 35X. It's been changed in recent years, but if you're flying in one of these small planes, you can use one of the shorter runways that's available here at Ronald Reagan national airport.
And the approach along the Potomac River, that it seems likely that this plane was taking, there are -- there are a number of potential options. But one of the most beautiful approaches, if you're in one of these small planes, is a long the Potomac River. And you do actually have a view out the window of all of those beautiful landmarks on the national mall.
And it's also the river again, the Pentagon also sits right on the same side as the airport. So if you're a Black Hawk helicopter flying along the river, the Pentagon is immediately there as well. And that's part of why there is so much air traffic like that in this area. And if you do live here and you're used to seeing this, there is helicopter activity over the Potomac River, low flying helicopter activity over the river constantly.
It is a regular daily occurrence multiple times a day, in fact. And you can also see if there's a road that kind of runs along the river as well. If you're driving along that road, you'll often see aircraft coming down again, very low on this approach path to Ronald Reagan National Airport.
So of course, it seems that in this case, last night, this, of course, ended in a horrible tragedy. So we are working on learning more details. We're going to be out here on scene all morning bringing you the latest.
We are going to take a brief break. We'll be right back here. You're watching breaking news on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:14:06]
HUNT: Welcome back to our breaking CNN coverage of this plane crash into the Potomac River here in the Washington, D.C. area. We're in Alexandria, Virginia.
And U.S. figure skating is confirming this morning that several members of its skating community were on board the American Airlines flight that was involved in the crash. This is what they said in a statement. Quote, these athletes, coaches and family members were returning home from the national development camp held in conjunction with the U.S. figure skating championships in Wichita, Kansas. We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy, and we hold these victims closely in our hearts. We will continue to monitor the situation and release more information as it becomes available.
We are joined by CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo right now.
Mary, good morning to you.
This, of course, such a difficult situation. Can you help us understand a little bit about how something like this could have happened, and also what we're seeing unfold behind us right now?
[05:15:06]
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Sure. Well, you know, DCA, Reagan National, is a tremendously busy airspace. The runway, one of the runways, is the most active runway in the U.S. There is a lot of aviation here.
And on top of the commercial airport, of course, you've got military aviation, VIP aviation, et cetera. So we have put an awful lot of aviation in a very small airspace. And that's the problem. When Reagan, when Dulles first opened decades ago, this was supposed to actually close because of the proximity to D.C., the crowding, the airspace issues, et cetera.
So the fact that, you know, fortunately, D.C. has been very lucky that they haven't had major tragedies and there's just a lot of aviation, a small airspace.
Now bringing it down to -- to this particular one, we now have a lot of clues that have come out. Air traffic control had been speaking with the helicopter, asked the helicopter if they had this plane inside, and that gives us a lot of clues. Obviously, the aircraft has collision avoidance. The helicopter may not have had the same systems and sometimes it doesn't work at very low altitudes. It doesn't work very well.
But the helicopter was given instructions to see and avoid. That's the oldest thing in aviation. See and avoid the other aircraft and it will be part of the investigation to figure out why they were not able to do that. Did they mistake this aircraft for another aircraft? There were other aircraft in the area, and so there are a lot of clues coming out right now.
HUNT: Mary, how common is this? I mean, it seems like it's been a long time since we've seen, I mean, something that this devastating.
SCHIAVO: Well, you know, fortunately for the American traveling public and everybody over whose heads the aviation industry flies, you know, it has become rare. But what has been on the wrong trajectory for several years now is exactly this collisions, collisions at the airport almost entirely -- collisions on the runway, near collisions near misses. And in the last year, we had a record number of near collisions.
Now, not just right here at DCA, but all over the country. There are systems that can help. The systems are not, for example, they aren't installed at every airport in the country. Even some aircraft have additional systems. Sometimes private planes don't even use all the systems that they have.
But in the last few years, near collisions have been dramatically on the rise, almost always at the airport.
HUNT: I do feel like we have covered so many of those just in the last year here at CNN.
Can you talk a little bit about why that may have been on the rise? Have there been -- I mean, what role does the FAA play in helping avoid that? Is -- is there a structural issue at play?
HUNT: It's kind of all of the above. Obviously, the FAA and air traffic control and, of course, the advances in science and technology to keep aircraft separated has been developing for years. But a number of years ago, some of the required separations between aircraft, nothing scientific, just how much difference between the aircraft. In some cases, it was allowed to get shorter, lesser distance between aircraft.
We also have had have seen a concentration of more and more flights at some of the major airports. You know, in our country we have literally thousands of airports, but flights are pretty much, you know, centered on about 30 to 50 airports. And that's because that's where flights want to go and where people want to go.
So, we are seeing a consolidation. We've seen a consolidation on airlines. Airlines -- we now have far fewer than we had when I was a kid, for example. So were putting a lot of airplanes at, you know, just a few of our airports. We have equipment that we can install all across the country. That equipment is installed here, by the way, to help reduce the chance of a collision.
But when you put aircraft in that system that aren't flying on the same collision avoidance systems, you come back to literally how air traffic control was, you know, 50 years ago, the tower asks, or the control the controllers ask an aircraft if they have the other aircraft in sight and literally get in line and follow them. I mean, that's how aviation was back in the day.
They used to call it in the '30s and '40s, bonfires. They literally would follow landmarks on the highway in the sky. Well, if you're asking an aircraft to find another one and follow it, um, you know, it really just depends upon the pilot to see and avoid. And it didn't happen.
HUNT: And what impact does flying at night have on that?
SCHIAVO: Flying at night, while its beautiful, is much more difficult. I mean, I very much remember my first night flight and flight training and while it was just, you know, just a marvelous sight, you know, especially the airport lights, it's very difficult because everything looks different at night.
[05:20:02]
You know, a lot of people say its easier to see aircraft, but its also easier to mistake lights. It's difficult to judge distances on the lights sometimes. You don't have the usual landmarks, but, you know, an experienced pilot, if you've flown in the night in this area for years and years or for many, many flights, then you're used to how it looks.
This flight was a training flight. We don't know anything about the people on the flight yet, but perhaps they were not used to the area, or like I said, when I look at those videos and the video of the collision is heartbreaking but very telling.
There was another light in the sky, very near another aircraft, and at night, you know, lights look very similar. You can mistake one for the other. And I thought that the instant I saw the video, and I don't know if that's -- that's right or not, but that's what I thought.
HUNT: Really, really devastating. Mary Schiavo, you're going to stand by and be with us throughout the next couple of hours.
And coming up next here, as we continue to cover this breaking story, what impact did the weather have on last night's tragedy? That's next.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:25:37]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN DONNELY, CHIEF, D.C. FIRE AND EMS: The conditions out there are extremely rough for the responders. It's cold. They're dealing with relatively windy conditions. Wind is hard out on the river, so they're out there working. We're keeping -- doing everything we can to keep them safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Welcome back.
So as you can see, nearly freezing temperatures here in the Washington, D.C. area this morning as search and rescue efforts are continuing after last nights midair crash between an American Airlines commercial jet and a military helicopter, rescuers have yet to find any survivors and pull them from the water. Law enforcement sources telling CNN that the search is becoming, quote, more grim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONNELLY: There's not a lot of lights. You're out there searching every square inch of space to see if you can find anybody. The divers are doing the same thing in the water. The water is dark. It is murky.
This is, if you can imagine, the river is a large black spot at night with no lights on it, except for a few buoy lights. So they were out there looking the boats pretty quickly were able to locate the one of the aircraft and get their.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, let's bring in CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam with more on the conditions.
Derek, good morning to you.
What do we know about what the weather was like last night as this unfolded and what it means for this search and rescue operation?
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Kasie, it's looking very likely that weather wasn't a major factor in the role of the crash. But of course, going forward with the search and the recovery efforts, that is going to play a major factor.
Right now, the water, the temperatures in the air are 42 degrees with the wind chill factor, which, by the way, at the time of the crash, the winds were gusting about 25 miles per hour. That's dropping the wind chill values into the upper 30s. So that is what the rescue efforts are contending with.
But let's talk about what's happening under the water, right? For those divers that are, yes, in their cold water diving outfits, but they are still susceptible to the water temperatures in the Potomac. So we looked up a buoy, an actual weather sensor in the water near the collision site.
And during the time of the crash late last evening, temperatures, water temperatures were roughly 35 degrees Fahrenheit.
Here's DCA, Reagan National Airport. There's the collision location. There's the weather sensor and this water temperature information is so critical and so important for this recovery effort. And the search and rescue effort as well.
So, the National Weather Service has this information on their website that talking about the human survivability time frame for water temperatures between 32 and 40 degrees. So when we're sitting right in the middle of that, were talking 30 to 90 minutes. So any exposure to that type of water can be extremely dangerous for hypothermia. And, of course, other factors as well -- Kasie.
HUNT: Derek, what -- what are we looking at in terms of weather here going forward as this operation continues? Obviously, we know from sources, as we said at the top here, that this is getting more and more grim. But what's the outlook over the next day, day and a half.
VAN DAM: Okay. So conditions right now are clear over the nation's capital. But I want to point your attention towards what's happening over this region here. Lots of rain a very on a very disturbed weather pattern that is heading towards the mid-Atlantic that will overspread the region by Thursday. This is a recovery effort that will certainly go on for days. So as
time goes on, conditions here will certainly start to deteriorate as we head into the day tomorrow -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Derek Van Dam for us -- Derek, I know you're going to stand by throughout the morning on this. Thank you very much for that.
And I want to go now to CNN's Rene Marsh, who is here with me. She has been covering the investigation, as we are trying to learn more about where things stand.
Rene, we know that 300 plus first responders involved in this desperate effort overnight to try to find any survivors. What else do we know about the investigation?
RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean, we're here. We're still hearing those helicopters -- bobbing, buzzing above us, but we have not seen the sign of the debris field.