A diving team and police boat are seen around a wreckage site in the Potomac River from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Arlington.
| Photo Credit: AP

Investigators on Thursday (January 30, 2025) recovered the black boxes from a passenger plane whose mid-air collision with a military helicopter over Washington’s Potomac river killed 67 people, as rescuers pulled victims’ bodies from the freezing water.

U.S. President Donald Trump launched a political attack blaming diversity and inclusion policies championed by his Democratic predecessors for causing the incident.

Mr. Trump’s politicization of the tragedy came as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it had recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier jet operated by an American Airlines subsidiary that smashed into an Army Black Hawk helicopter late Wednesday.

“The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation,” the agency said in a statement to AFP.

According to a New York Times report, staffing was thin in the control tower at Reagan National Airport, where the airliner was about to land when the collision occurred.

One controller, rather than the usual two, was handling both plane and helicopter traffic, the Times quoted a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration report as saying.

A fireball erupted in the night sky and both aircraft tumbled into the icy Potomac, leaving rescue crews with the grim, difficult task of searching for bodies in the dark and cold.

Over 40 bodies had been recovered as of Thursday evening, according to US media reports.

Trump politicizes crash

Mr. Trump, who took office 10 days ago, turned a press conference on the disaster into a platform for his crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI — a series of often decades-old measures meant to combat racism and sexism across the United States.

Accusing his Democratic predecessors Joe Biden and Barack Obama of having kept good employees out of the aviation agency in pursuit of DEI, he claimed: “They actually came out with a directive: ‘too white.’ And we want the people that are competent.”

The passenger plane was carrying 64 people and the Black Hawk had three aboard.

The collision — the first major crash in the United States since 2009 when 49 people were killed near Buffalo, New York — occurred as American Eagle Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas came in to land.

Reagan National is a major airport located a short distance from downtown Washington, the White House and the Pentagon. The airspace is extremely busy, with civilian and military aircraft a constant presence.

Mr. Trump opened his White House press conference by speaking of the nation’s anguish.

However, he then launched into an extended broadside against DEI, aiming directly at Biden’s openly gay transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“He’s run it right into the ground with his diversity,” Mr. Trump said.

The message was hammered home as Mr. Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, and new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, took turns at the podium to repeat — without evidence — the hard-right theory that diversity measures keep capable Americans out of responsible jobs.

Asked again by reporters whether he was blaming workplace diversity for the crash, Trump answered: “It could have been.”

Buttigieg responded on X, calling Mr. Trump “despicable.”

“As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying,” he said.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy posted that Trump’s comments “blaming the FAA’s hiring of women and black people for the crash — was disgusting.”

“He’s in charge. This happened on his watch,” Murphy said.

Trump doubled down, however, later issuing an official memo directing the government to investigate “deterioration in hiring standards” under Biden and “replacement” of anyone unqualified.

Skaters among victims

Among those on the airliner were several US skaters and coaches, US Figure Skating said. Officials in Moscow also confirmed the presence of Russian couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the 1994 world pairs title.

Two Chinese citizens were also among the victims of the crash, state news agency Xinhua reported Friday in Beijing, citing the Chinese embassy.

The force of the collision soon made it clear that survivors were unlikely.

“I just saw a fireball and it was gone,” one air traffic controller was heard telling a colleague after communication with the helicopter was cut.

Transport officials said both aircraft were on standard flight patterns on a clear night with good visibility.

And Hegseth said the chopper had “a fairly experienced crew that was doing a required annual night evaluation.”

The victims of a crash between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter included teen figure skaters returning from a national meet with their mothers and coaches, an Ohio college student coming from her grandfather’s funeral and a group of hunters headed back from a guided trip in Kansas.

They were among 60 travelers and four crew members on board the commercial flight late Wednesday (January 30, 2025) when it collided with a Black Hawk helicopter that was carrying three soldiers. Officials say there are no survivors.

At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the helicopter apparently flew into the path of the American Airlines regional jet late Wednesday while it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, just across the river from Washington, officials said.

President Donald Trump told a White House news conference that no one survived.

“We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” said John Donnelly, the fire chief in the nation’s capital.

As the search for remains continued Thursday, communities grieved. Faith leaders held a vigil Thursday in the city council chambers.

“The only way we will get through this is together,” said the Rev. Pamela Hughes Mason of Wichita’s St. Paul AME Church.

American Airlines set up a hotline as well as centers in Washington and Wichita for people searching for information about family members who may have been aboard the downed flight. The hotline can be reached at 1-800 679 8215.

Here’s what we know about who was killed in Wednesday night’s crash:

Skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane were among those killed, according to Doug Zeghibe, CEO of the Skating Club of Boston. Their mothers, Jin Han and Christine Lane, as well as their coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were also killed.

Han and Lane, who was about 16, were returning from the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

“We watched Jinna just grow up here from just a tiny little tyke into this amazingly mature 13-year-old,” he said. “A great performer, a great competitor, and off the ice, a great kid.”

Spencer Lane, who was from Barrington, Rhode Island, took part in his first professional show in December with Elin Schran’s company, Joy Skate Productions.

“He started to discover this connection with the audience and that joy that he was giving to other people through his gift,” Schran said.

In a statement, the Lane family recalled Christine Lane for both her singular talents and her dedication to parenting.

“Christine exuded creativity throughout her life, using her formal graphic design training as a jumping-off point for seemingly endless creative pursuits across areas such as photography, quilting, knitting, and more. She brought even greater passion to her role as a mother to Spencer and his brother Milo,” the family said.

Their coaches, Shishkova and Naumov, won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships in Chiba, Japan. The Russia-born pair also competed twice in the Olympics.

Skating organizations in Philadelphia and the Washington area also said some of their young athletes had been aboard the plane.

Several athletes on the flight had attended a development camp held after the U.S. Figure Skating Championships ended Sunday in Wichita, Kansas.

Wichita Skating Center manager Sean O’Reilly said the championships brought a “groundswell of positivity,” drawing enthusiastic parents and young athletes from across the U.S. He was “gutted” to learn some of those skaters had been killed.

In Virginia’s Loudoun County, a coach at a skating club was also identified as among the passengers, Virginia Rep. Suhas Subramanyam confirmed. The club, Ashburn Ice House, said that its “figure skating community has been directly affected,” but did not give further details.

Cedarville University in Ohio said one of the passengers on the plane was Grace Maxwell, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering.

Maxwell’s father, Dean Maxwell, said she was returning to campus from her home in Wichita, Kansas, after attending her grandfather’s funeral, the Kansas City Star reported.

Grace Maxwell had been working on project this semester to create a hand-stabilizing device to help a boy in the area feed himself instead of rely on others, the university said in a statement.

“Grace was a quiet person with a keen interest in helping others through engineering,” said Tim Norman, who served as her secondary advisor.

Three other students from schools in Fairfax County, Virginia, and six parents from the district were also on board the plane, superintendent Michelle Reid said in a letter to families. She did not identify them, but she said the students were from different schools and that two of the parents were current or former district staffers.

Seven people returning from a guided hunting trip in Kansas were killed, according to a Facebook post by Fowl Plains, the guide service.

The Fowl Plains team said they had grown close to the hunters on board the flight over the years and considered them to be family members. The post doesn’t identify the hunters by name, but it says they had spent the past week on a guided hunt, “laughing, talking about our families and sharing memories.”

“Heartbroken is an understatement,” the company said.

Those killed also included four steamfitters, all members of a United Association union local in suburban Maryland, union leaders said in a social media post Thursday.

“Our focus now is on providing support and care to the families of our Brothers as we continue to gather more information in the coming days,” said the post by UA General President Mark McManus and Chris Madello, the business manager of Local 602.

The bodies of all three soldiers who were on the helicopter have been recovered.

Officials said the remains will be at Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. That office coordinates the dignified transfer of fallen service members.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet announced. No identities of the crew have been released.

But the wife of one of the helicopter pilots said on Facebook that her husband, Andrew Eaves of Noxubee County Mississippi, was killed. In a phone call, Carrie Eaves confirmed the post was hers.

“We ask that you pray for our family and friends and for all the other families that are suffering today. We ask for peace while we grieve,” her post read.

The three soldiers were doing an annual night proficiency training flight, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, adding they were a “fairly experienced crew.” Officials were notifying relatives, he said.

Deadliest U.S. air disaster in almost a quarter century

The plane was found upside-down in three sections in waist-deep water, and first responders were searching miles of the Potomac, Donnelly said. The helicopter wreckage was also found. Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said said the plane was making a normal approach when “the military aircraft came into the path” of the jet.

One air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes when the collision happened, according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration that was obtained by The Associated Press. Those duties are often divided between two people, but the airport typically combines the roles at 9:30 p.m, once traffic begins to slow down. On Wednesday the tower supervisor directed that they be combined earlier.

“The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the report said. A person familiar with the matter, however, said the tower staffing that night was at a normal level.

The positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks, during shift changes or when air traffic is slow, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.

The Federal Aviation Administration has long struggled with a shortage of air traffic controllers.

Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight slammed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard.

The last major fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, along with one person on the ground, bringing the total death toll to 50.

Experts often highlight that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, however. The National Safety Council estimates that Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash, while deaths on airplanes are too rare to calculate the odds. Figures from the Department of Transportation tell a similar story.