All of the people around the American Airlines passenger plane and the military helicopter involved in Wednesday night’s horrific mid-air collision have been killed, officials have confirmed.
Sixty-four people aboard a commercial airliner died Wednesday night after it collided with a military helicopter midair near Reagan Washington National Airport.
Both the American Eagle jet and Army Black Hawk are in the Potomac River. The Black Hawk had three personnel onboard.
The collision occurred shortly before 9 p.m. ET.
President Donald Trump called the deadly collision a “tragedy of terrible proportions” as he addressed reporters in the White House briefing room Thursday morning.
“This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation’s capital and in our nation’s history and a tragedy of terrible proportions as one nation, we grieve for every precious soul that has been taken from us so suddenly,” Trump said.
Trump noted that all those aboard the two aircraft were feared dead.
However, officials have now confirmed that there were no survivors.
According to American Airlines, American Eagle Flight 5342 had 60 passengers and four crew members.
It was traveling from Wichita to Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, just over the Washington line.
The crash took place near the airport.
American Airlines said it was in contact with authorities and assisting with response efforts.
The company said its concern was “for the passengers and crew on board the aircraft.”
The U.S. Army has confirmed that the helicopter was a Black Hawk operating out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the helicopter crew involved in the crash was “fairly experienced.”
The crew was doing an “annual proficiency training flight” at the time of the collision.
Hegseth said the three crew members were from the Bravo Company 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir.
The army base is in Virginia about 14 miles away from the airport.
Dozens of bodies have been recovered from the Potomac River.
The operation has become a major recovery effort.
The flight carried several elite figure skaters from both the U.S. and Russia who were traveling back from a competition in Wichita.
Doug Zeghibe, CEO of The Skating Club of Boston, said 14 skaters returning home from the national development camp in Wichita, Kansas, were killed in the crash.
Of those, six were from The Skating Club of Boston — two coaches, two teenage athletes, and the athletes’ mothers.
Those six were identified as athlete Jinna Han; Jinna’s mother, Jin Han; athlete Spencer Lane; Spencer’s mother, Christine Lane; and coaches Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova.
Russia’s state media reported that two Russian world champions were also among the passengers on the American Airlines flight.
By Thursday morning, officials said that at least two dozen bodies had been pulled from the water.
Of those, 27 were from the American Eagle civilian jet.
One was from the U.S. Black Hawk helicopter, officials said.
Boats and ambulances have been transporting human remains to a temporary morgue.
The D.C. medical examiner said it is the largest recovery operation it has undertaken in decades.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation into the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the U.S. Army will also be involved in the investigation.
The investigation will involve collecting evidence from the scene and reviewing radio traffic and data on aircraft flight paths.
It will also involve communicating with air traffic controllers and interviewing them.
The process is expected to take at least a year.
The NTSB said its investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.
The black boxes are at a lab for evaluation.
Weather and communication did not appear to be issues when the crash occurred Wednesday night.
Skies were clear and pilots were in communication with air traffic control.
Two aviation experts also told NBC News that there was no evidence pointing to missteps by the pilots.
Experts expect dialogue with air traffic control to be one of the main focal points of the investigation.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters that both the plane and the helicopter were being flown by experienced pilots who had “standard communication” with air traffic control when they crashed.
At the time of the crash, there was one controller in the air traffic control tower focused on both helicopters and airplanes, according to a preliminary internal FAA safety report on the collision.
Usually, the tower has a separate controller who deals exclusively with helicopter traffic.
FAA safety standards allow for the combined position.
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