2025 Potomac River mid-air collision

On January 29, 2025, a Bombardier CRJ700 airliner operating as American Airlines Flight 5342 (operated by PSA Airlines as American Eagle) and a United States Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter operating as Priority Air Transport 25 collided in mid-air over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. The collision occurred at 8:47 p.m. at an altitude of about 300 ft and about one-half mile (800 m) short of the threshold of runway 33 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. All 67 people aboard both aircraft were killed in the crash, 64 passengers and crew on the airliner and the three crew of the helicopter. It was the first major US commercial passenger flight crash since Colgan Air Flight 3407 in 2009, and the deadliest US air disaster since the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in 2001. This was also the third hull loss and first fatal accident involving the CRJ700 series.

The jet was on final approach into Reagan National Airport after flying a scheduled route from Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita, Kansas, to D.C., while the helicopter crew was performing a required annual flying evaluation with night vision goggles and had left from Davison Army Airfield in Fairfax County, Virginia. Both aircraft communicated with air traffic control before they collided. The helicopter crew reported twice that they had visual contact with the airliner and would maintain separation from it, although it is unknown whether they were monitoring the correct aircraft. The crew of the Black Hawk may not have heard parts of the tower communication due to a mic press.

On March 11, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a preliminary report along with urgent safety recommendations, highlighting the dangerously narrow vertical separation between the runway approach path and the helicopter route. The NTSB chair also expressed anger that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not act on data showing the number of near-miss alerts over the previous decade.

The final report, released on February 17, 2026, concluded that the probable causes of the crash included the FAA's placement of the helicopter route, failures in the agency's oversight, and an overreliance on visual separation. Also causal was helicopter pilot error, loss of situational awareness by air traffic control due to high workload, and the United States Army's failure to ensure pilot understanding of altimeter error tolerances.

Accident

At 8:43 p.m. EST (2025-01-30T01:43 UTC), as American Airlines Flight 5342 was flying a visual approach to runway 1, it made initial contact with the Reagan National control tower. The controller asked if the crew could switch to runway 33. The crew accepted the request and were subsequently cleared to land on runway 33. The helicopter was about 1.1 nmi west of the Key Bridge following Helicopter Route 1 to Helicopter Route 4. At 8:46 p.m., around two minutes before the collision, the controller called the helicopter crew, advising them of a CRJ700, at an altitude of 1200 ft south of the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, circling runway 33. The part of the transmission advising that the CRJ was "circling" was not captured by the helicopter's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and may not have been heard by the helicopter crew. The helicopter crew acknowledged that they had the jet in sight and requested visual separation—meaning that they could see and maintain separation from the aircraft on their own—which the controller approved. However, it remains unclear if they had acknowledged the correct aircraft.

At 8:47 p.m. EST, 20 seconds before the collision, the controller asked the helicopter crew if they had the CRJ in sight. An audible air traffic radar conflict alert in the background of the transmission was present. One second later, the airliner crew received an automatic traffic advisory from their traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS) which was accompanied by an audible announcement in the cockpit, "traffic; traffic." However, TCAS resolution advisories with audible instructions like "climb; climb" or "descend; descend" are automatically disabled when an aircraft is below 900 ft above ground level to avoid guiding an aircraft into potential collisions with terrain or other aircraft in congested terminal airspace. TCAS traffic advisories are disabled below 400 ft.

Seventeen seconds before the collision, the controller instructed the helicopter to pass behind Flight 5342. One of the helicopter crew members depressed a mic for 0.8 seconds to communicate with the controller during this transmission, which may have caused the "pass behind" part of the transmission to be missed by the helicopter crew. The helicopter crew again confirmed they had an airplane in sight and requested visual separation from the airliner, which the controller approved again.

Fifteen seconds before the crash, flight instructor and co-pilot Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves asked the pilot, Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, to change course by making a sharp left to the east river bank. Capt. Lobach acknowledged the request and attempted to execute it, but failed. Seven seconds before the collision, the airliner "rolled out on final" (finished its turn) to line up with runway 33. One second before the crash, the airliner increased its pitch with its elevators deflected close to their maximum nose-up travel.

The two aircraft collided at 8:47:59. The recorded radio altitude of the Black Hawk at the time of the collision was 278 ft. The helicopter exploded and both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River. The airliner's airspeed was 128 mph. The CRJ700's radio transponder ceased transmitting about 2400 ft short of Runway 33.

The collision was captured by a webcam at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and another video showed a brief trail of fire. Other videos showed that the collision may have damaged the rotor blades of the Black Hawk and the left wing of the CRJ700 as the airliner fell in a left-hand spiral into the water. Witnesses reported that the airliner "split in half" upon impact, while the helicopter crashed upside down near the airliner. A pilot in another aircraft confirmed seeing the crash to an air traffic controller and reported seeing flares from the opposite side of the Potomac as his flight was on short final.

Within three hours of the collision, authorities confirmed fatalities. By 2:50 a.m. the following morning, no survivors had been reported, and the search and rescue operations were described as "becoming more grim". By the afternoon, all 67 people on board both aircraft were presumed dead.

It was the first major commercial passenger flight accident in the US in nearly 16 years, following Colgan Air Flight 3407 in February 2009. It was also the first fatal crash involving American Airlines since Flight 587 in November 2001, as well as the first fatal crash of a CRJ700 series aircraft. It was the first crash in the Potomac River since Air Florida Flight 90 in January 1982.