Midwest
DC plane crash timeline: Midair collision involves 67 passengers, crew members, soldiers
An estimated 67 people are presumed dead after a Black Hawk helicopter collided with a commercial American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening.
A total of 64 people, including four crew members, were aboard passenger American Airlines Flight 5342, and three soldiers were on the Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk that came from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
AMERICAN AIRLINES PLANE, ARMY HELICOPTER COLLIDE OUTSIDE REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT NEAR WASHINGTON DC
Here is a timeline of events leading up to and immediately after the Wednesday night crash.
Jan. 29
5:18 p.m. CST
AA Flight 5342 departs Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ITC) for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) at 5:18 p.m. CST, or 6:18 p.m. EST, according to air traffic control records from FlightRadar24.
Jan. 29 D.C. plane-helicopter collision map.
8:39 p.m. EST
An Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter departs Fort Belvoir as part of a training exercise. A senior Army official told Fox News the soldiers were part of a “fairly experienced” Black Hawk crew, and they had night vision goggles aboard the helicopter.
8:40 p.m. EST
Flight 5342 began to descend into DCA from the south.
DC PLANE CRASH AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AUDIO REVEALS MOMENT CONTROLLERS SAW DISASTER: ‘TOWER DID YOU SEE THAT?’
8:46 p.m.
Air traffic controllers ask Flight 5342 to land on Runway 33, and pilots acknowledge the order.
ATC AUDIO:
8:48 p.m. EST
An air traffic control official asks the Black Hawk (PAT-25) pilot whether he can see the commercial aircraft.
“Do you have the CRJ in sight?” the controller asks, and the helicopter pilot confirms he sees the passenger plane and requests “visual separation,” meaning he is trying to get out of the flight’s path, according to FlightRadar24 audio.
VICTIMS IDENTIFIED IN DC PLANE CRASH INVOLVING AMERICAN AIRLINES JET AND MILITARY HELICOPTER
“PAT-25, do you have the CRJ in sight?” the controller can be heard saying to the helicopter pilot 30 seconds before the crash.
The controller makes another radio call to PAT-25 moments later: “PAT-25, pass behind the CRJ.”
ATC AUDIO REVEALS MOMENT CONTROLLERS SAW DISASTER:
8:48 p.m. EST
Army UH-60 and Flight 5342 then collide over the Potomac River, causing an explosion midair at an altitude of about 300 feet that was caught on camera.
Air traffic controllers can be heard reacting, and asking, “Did you see that?”
8:53 p.m. EST
The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) receives phone calls reporting a plane crash over the Potomac.
REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT CRASH: MILITARY BLACK HAWK HELICOPTER COLLIDES MIDAIR WITH AMERICAN AIRLINES JET
MPD, D.C. Fire and EMS, and “multiple partner agencies” begin coordinating a search and rescue operation.
Emergency vehicles stage at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night on Jan. 29, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. (Kevin Wolf/AP)
9:00 p.m. EST
DCA closes due to an “aircraft emergency.”
9:09 p.m. EST
The DC Fire and EMS Department posts an update on X stating, “Confirmed small aircraft down in Potomac River vicinity Reagan National Airport. Fireboats on scene.”
Rescue workers respond to the scene on the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
10:51 p.m. EST
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posts a statement from President Donald Trump to X.
“I have been fully briefed on the terrible accident which just took place at Reagan National Airport. May God Bless their souls. Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders. I am monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arise,” the statement reads.
Emergency response teams, including Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS, Washington, D.C., Police and others, assess airplane wreckage in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington Airport on Jan. 30, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. (Andrew Harnik/Getty)
12:30 a.m. EST
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser holds a press conference with other law enforcement personnel and announces that a passenger aircraft collided with a military aircraft.
DC Fire and EMS Chief John A. Donnelly announces that officials “have recovered 27 people from the plane and one from the helicopter.”
Law enforcement continue their investigation into the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Potomac River as it was attempting to land at the Reagan National Airport on Jan. 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, collided in midair with a military helicopter while approaching the airport. According to reports, there were no survivors among the 67 people on board both aircraft. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
“Despite all these efforts, we are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” Donnelly says.
Jan. 30
8:30 a.m. EST
Officials hold a press conference in Washington, D.C., saying all 67 passengers, crew members and soldiers on board both aircraft are presumed dead.
“We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” Donnelly says during the briefing. “We don’t believe there are any survivors.”
11:00 a.m. EST
Flights resume landing at DCA; the first aircraft lands at the airport at 11:02 a.m.
A Department of Homeland Security source tells Fox News Digital that there are “no terror concerns” after the collision, and officials suspect the crash was “just a tragedy.”
An internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) report reviewed by The New York Times says staffing at the air control tower at DCA was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.”
Onlookers watch as emergency crews respond to the crash site near the Potomac River after a passenger jet collided with a helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The controller who was handling helicopters Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from the airport runways, the Times reported. Those assignments are typically assigned to two controllers.
Jan. 31
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told “Fox & Friends” on Friday that officials “will get to the bottom of what happened here.”
“It’s completely unacceptable in our nation’s capital or anywhere. The military trains, and it trains robustly. And we’re not going to stop training, even though there’s a pause on this unit, on this exercise, which is an important one. And we should have that pause until we get to the bottom of this,” Hegseth said. “…We have to train safely. Something like this can never happen. And it’s completely unacceptable.”
Hegseth adds that he does not “know exactly how the staffing occurred in that particular air traffic control tower.”
WATCH:
“It sounds like there was a shortage [of controllers], and the investigation will tell us more about that,” he said. “But the environment around which we choose pilots or air traffic controllers, as the president pointed out correctly yesterday, better be the highest possible standard — the best of the best who are managing … a flight a minute and managing radio traffic.”
The Federal Aviation Administration reportedly restricts helicopter flights near DCA, telling Reuters the agency is prohibiting most helicopters from areas of two routes near the airport, only allowing first responders into the area.
The routes are believed to be the same ones the Army Black Hawk helicopter was traveling along Wednesday night when it collided with the American Airlines passenger jet.
Law enforcement continue their investigation into the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Potomac River as it was attempting to land at the Reagan National Airport on January 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
The FAA also said to lawmakers that the restrictions will remain in place indefinitely as it conducts an investigation, according to Reuters.
“Our union fully supports this action by the FAA,” the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said. “Operations should change, at the very least until we learn more about what led to the deadliest U.S. aviation accident in 24 years. 67 souls were lost not even 48 hours ago — we should not operate as if nothing happened.”
Prior to the deadly collision, there had been a military aircraft-involved crash in Alaska on Tuesday. Officials said a U.S. Air Force F-35 fighter jet crashed in Alaska after the pilot managed to safely eject from the aircraft.
There have been at least 238 deaths and 227 injuries stemming from non-combat U.S. military aircraft crashes since 2012, according to the FAA.
There have also been multiple “close call” incidents at DCA since 2023.
Fox News’ Greg Norman, The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Read the full article from Here
CLEVELAND, Ohio (TheOBR.com) Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!
There are mornings when I sit down at this keyboard, look at the Browns quarterback discourse, and wonder whether I should have gone into a more stable line of work. Such as selling timeshares from inside an office that has been lit on fire. Because here we are in late June, with no pads, no preseason games, no live pass rush, and apparently everyone from television personalities to team-adjacent announcers to webdorks like me has solved the Browns quarterback battle. That’s 90% of the news items out there this morning.
But I don’t care, and look on that endless speculative churning as simply being noise at this point.
One story that matters this morning is Andrew Healy leaving Cleveland for Minnesota, which I wrote about several days ago. He’s joining the Vikings as an assistant general manager.
Let Barry know what you think of the Daily Bloviation! CLICK HERE!
If your first reaction was, “Okay, front-office guy changes jobs, wake me when someone throws a slant,” I get it. Executives mostly become famous when something goes wrong, which is a cruel system, but, hey, I didn’t design the planet. I just live here.
But Healy’s departure is a real loss. Alec Lewis’ Athletic reporting had two quotes that should get your attention. Browns offensive analyst Dom Borsani called Healy “a little bit like a unicorn,” because he combined research background and technical aptitude with a traditional scouting lens and an understanding of coaching schemes. Former Browns senior software developer Zach Zelinsky, now with the Arizona Diamondbacks, called him “probably the smartest guy I’ve worked with in sports.”
That’s not normal praise. That’s not “great teammate, first guy in, last guy out” boilerplate. This is people inside the machine saying the Browns just lost one of the people who helped connect the spreadsheet world to the football world. And that matters because the modern NFL is not analytics versus scouting anymore — or at least it shouldn’t be. The good organizations are the ones where the numbers people understand what the scouts are seeing, the scouts trust that the numbers can challenge their assumptions, and the coaches don’t throw the laptop into Lake Erie.
Healy’s Sloan Sports Analytics bio says that, for the last five years, he “led the integration of data and advanced insights into all parts of football operations.” It also says he started with the Browns in 2016 as Senior Player Personnel Strategist, helping to develop methods for valuing players, making game decisions, and evaluating draft assets. Before that, he created projection systems for Football Outsiders, and before that, he was an economics professor with a Ph.D. from MIT. So, yes, he is smarter than your humble webdork. This is not a high bar, but still.
So, naturally, I was worried about this and did what I always do when I’m looking for common-sense answers: I talked to Lane. He let me know what he “was told all the systems have been in place, with others handling the process. It doesn’t feel like they are overly concerned with his departure. As they have told me previously, you never like to lose assets, but you plan accordingly.”
The Browns still have Andrew Berry. They still have people in the research department. This is not a one-man shop collapsing because the smartest guy took his stapler to Minneapolis. But when you lose Paul DePodesta to the Rockies and Healy to the Vikings in the same general era, you lose institutional memory, decision-making frameworks, and the people who knew why certain models were built the way they were. Don’t expect the loss of the two to indicate much about how the Browns use analytics – it hasn’t fallen out of favor or suddenly joined Maurice Carthon’s playbook in the annals of football history.
This is the type of stuff fans don’t see until two years later, when the draft board feels different, the fourth-down decisions get twitchy, or the team suddenly stops finding value in places it used to find value. Maybe Berry replaces that brainpower cleanly. Maybe the remaining group steps forward. Maybe the Browns are fine. But losing a “unicorn” from a front office is like losing a left guard: nobody talks about it until the pressure starts coming up the middle.
Have a good one! GO BROWNS!
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Positive news from the world of sports and beyond…
Space.com reports that scientists are drawing up a research blueprint to examine whether warming Mars is actually feasible — not because anyone should be selling lakefront property in Olympus Mons by Thursday, but because the work could help humanity understand what sustainable habitats beyond Earth would require. University of Chicago geophysical scientist Edwin Kite told Space.com, “We do not yet know enough to create a biosphere from scratch,” which is both humbling and oddly comforting. We can’t even get everyone to agree on the Browns quarterback depth chart, but sure, let’s keep the option open for Mars.
WRAPPING UP
When not trying to identify the precise moment quarterback analysis becomes interpretive dance, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.
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CHICAGO (WLS) — The Jimmy Awards honoring “theatre kids” is happening on Monday night in New York City!
Jane Nuich from Park Ridge and Logan Arroyo of Tinley Park will represent Illinois. They’ll be competing against over 100 students from across the nation.
ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watch
ABC7’s Hosea Sanders has been following their adventure that leads to a Broadway debut.
When asked if they’ve been intimidated about what’s to come, Arroyo said, “Yes, it’s scary. It’s a scary place, especially putting yourself out there on a stage or alone. I want to be an actor, and I will do whatever I can to do that.”
Nuich added, “It’s a huge opportunity to work with industry professionals and with so many other talented young people. And you get to experience so much in New York in that short week. And it’s, I think, such a cool experience rather than a big competition.”
Sanders also Arroyo and Nuich what growing up in the Chicago area has done for their exposure and their goals.
“I think the immediate access to all of the theater that Chicago has to offer has been so incredible to me. As a young student of theater and young performer in theater, I think it’s been so educational to me, and so inspiring to be able to anywhere in Chicago in a quick moment from the suburbs to just see so much theater,” Nuich said. “I think it’s so comforting to know you’re surrounded by so many artists who are just as passionate as you. And I think that going into a career in this, it’s so incredible to be exposed to so many young performers who are so talented and passionate as this age.”
Arroyo added, “I’m so excited to be around people I care about and love this as much as I do.”
When asked what previous Illinois Jimmy winners have told the performs, Nuich said, “It goes by really fast, that a lot will happen, but it’s important to stay grounded and to take it all in and realize what a special experience it is, and you just keep working hard.”
“My big dream is to do what I love and love myself for doing it,” Arroyo said.
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