By: Daylon Riley
Sixty-seven people are dead after a passenger jet collided midair with a Black Hawk helicopter sending both aircrafts crashing into the Potomac River just on the outskirts of the Reagan National Airport, Washington DC.
American Eagle flight 5342 which was a Bombardier CRJ700 took off from Wichita, Kansas on January 29th and was scheduled to arrive at its destination, Washington DC that night. The flight had 60 passengers along with 4 crew members on board.
Flight 5342 was on its final approach towards the runway at the Reagan Airport when it collided midair with a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter just before 9pm that night. The two aircrafts descended into the river breaking into pieces.
Officials told CBS news that the helicopter was flying 200 feet higher than it should have been at the time of the crash. The helicopter involved in the collision, which was carrying three soldiers, was on a training flight and had belonged to B Company, 12th Aviation Battalion out of Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donelly said that the recovery effort was “a highly complex operation, the conditions out there are extremely rough for the responders. It’s cold. They are dealing with windy conditions.” The massive search and rescue mission was conducted throughout the night of the accident recovering victims and pieces of the two aircrafts.
According to ABC news, many of the passengers were returning home from a national figure skating development camp in Wichita, Kansas. Alexandr Kirsanov was a coach of two youth ice skaters on board the flight, his wife Natalya Gudin said on ABC News. “ I lost everything,” Gudin said. “ I lost my husband, I lost my students, I lost my friends.”
Gudin, who also coaches figure skating in Delaware, said that her husband had attended the camp with the two skaters while she opted to stay with the other skaters back home. She last spoke with her husband as he boarded the flight on January 29th.
Remarks from newly elected President Trump stated that the country is heart broken and searching for answers. “It doesn’t matter what they (air traffic controllers) look like, how they speak, who they are… They have to be talented, naturally talented. We can’t have regular people doing this job. They won’t be able to do it, but we’ll restore faith in American air travel,” said President Trump.
It seems as though he is blaming the air traffic control system for the fatal accident as he implies that faith has been lost in American air travel.
The recovery team extracts a large portion of American Eagle flight out of the Potamac river February 03 in Arlington, Virginia.
CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/plane-crash-dc-helicopter-potomac-river/
THE PHAROS 
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