Following Wednesday’s tragic crash involving a commercial jet and a military helicopter during a training flight at Washington DC’s Reagan National Airport, concerns over the congestion of airspace around the capital have been reignited by public officials and aviation experts.
By Thursday night, authorities confirmed that all 64 passengers aboard the American Airlines flight were presumed dead, along with three personnel from the army helicopter, marking this as the deadliest air disaster in the US since 2001.
During his confirmation hearing on Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Daniel Driscoll – U.S. President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Army – questioned the need for military helicopters to conduct training exercises near such a heavily trafficked commercial airport. Driscoll expressed that the incident appeared “preventable” and pledged to review the army’s practices moving forward.
“There are appropriate times to take risk and inappropriate times to take risk,” he noted. “I think we need to look at where is an appropriate time to take training risk, and it may not be at an airport like Reagan.”
The U.S. military has yet to provide details on its helicopter training operations near the capital and has not responded to requests for comment.
Martin Chalk, a former British Airways captain who retired in 2020, suggested that military pilots may need to train in this specific area to prepare for missions involving the transport of senior political and military officials. This training could be crucial due to the proximity of key locations like the Pentagon, the White House, Capitol Hill, and other significant federal government buildings.
“There was communication between the air traffic control tower and the helicopter pilot about whether they can see the CRJ [the American Eagle Bombardier jet] – did the controller give too much authority to the helicopter crew, or did the helicopter crew mistake what they saw?” Chalk asked.
American Airlines confirmed that 60 passengers and four crew members were aboard American Eagle Flight 5342, a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet operated by its subsidiary, PSA Airlines, which was en route from Wichita to Washington. The flight was scheduled to land at 8:57 p.m., according to FlightAware, and all those aboard are believed to have perished in the crash.
The collision occurred at 8:47 p.m. when the plane collided with an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter on a training flight, based on publicly available flight-tracking data.
