No Survivors Expected After Passenger Jet Collided with Army Helicopter Near Washington D.C.

TIME

Dozens are believed to be dead after a regional American Airlines flight, operated by PSA Airlines, collided with an Army helicopter in midair on Wednesday night when it was about to land at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

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00:00Here's what I can share at this early stage. American Eagle Flight 5342 operated by PSA

00:08Airlines traveling from Wichita, Kansas to Reagan National Airport was involved in an accident just

00:16before 9 p.m. local time on final approach into Reagan National. It collided with a military

00:24aircraft on an otherwise normal approach and at this time we don't know why the military aircraft

00:31came into the path of the PSA aircraft. Flight 5342 a CRJ 700 was under the command of four

00:40crew members. They carried 60 passengers as you know for a total of 64 people on board. Last night

00:46at 848 the control tower sounded an alert which alerts responders to respond to a report of an

00:54aircraft crash on or near the airport. That sets off a immediate response from the Airport

01:00Authority Fire Department, from the District of Columbia and Metropolitan Harbor Patrol fireboats

01:05and other fireboats on the river in order to support that type of operation. Very quickly this

01:12call escalated. It became apparent you know the responders realized that they had a plane crash

01:18and immediately escalated to a response that ultimately included about 300 people last night.

01:26These responders found extremely frigid conditions. Despite all those efforts we are now at a point

01:33where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. At this point we don't

01:39believe there are any survivors from this accident and we have recovered 27 people from the plane and

01:46one from the helicopter. The District Office of the Medical Examiner has leaned on reuniting these

01:54bodies and these people with their loved ones and we will continue to work to find all the bodies

02:00and collect them and reunite them with their loved ones. We should also acknowledge that the

02:06Virginia Medical Examiner and the Army Medical Examiner are involved in this operation and a

02:14very important part of getting people identified. Everything was standard in the lead-up to the

02:21crash. Now obviously there was something happened here. You'll get more information and more details

02:25as this investigation moves forward. We'll learn what happened but again those who live in the DC

02:31area we see military helicopters fly up and down the river. It's a standard path that they fly.

02:38They're used to aircraft landing at DCA and there's a procedure in place because this happens

02:45every day. Something went wrong here. I look forward to the time and point when we can give

02:49you that information. So we are going to wait for all the information to come in from this vantage

02:55point but to back up what the President said, what I've seen so far do I think this was preventable?

03:02Absolutely.

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