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D.C. Plane Crash Live Updates: Black Boxes Found As More Details Emerge About Air Traffic Control Tower Staffing
Topline
A preliminary investigation report into the crash that occurred between a commercial plane and a military helicopter Wednesday night reportedly showed the air traffic control tower staffing level at Ronald Reagan National Airport, where the passenger jet was headed, was “not normal for the time of day and level of traffic,” The New York Times reported.
In this image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, wreckage is seen in the Potomac River near Ronald … [+]
Timeline
The FAA’s preliminary report on the incident noted that the staffing at the air traffic control tower was not “normal,” pointing to the fact that a single air traffic controller was handling both helicopter and plane traffic, the Associated Press reported.
However, the federal body’s assessment was refuted by an unnamed source cited by the AP who was familiar with the matter and said the staffing at the tower was at a normal level.
The New York Times reported that the handling of airplane traffic and helicopter traffic is usually handled by two separate controllers until 9.30 p.m. everyday
However on Wednesday evening, an air traffic control supervisor merged the two jobs before 9:30 p.m. (the collision occurred shortly before 9:00 p.m. local time) and allowed one air traffic controller to leave early, the Times report added.
The National Security Transport Board, which is investigating the crash, announced it had recovered the crashed plane’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder—which are sometimes referred to as “black boxes.” The two recorders were taken to the NTSB’s lab for evaluation.
About 40 bodies had been recovered in the Potomac River, ABC News and CBS News reported, along with some partial remains, and investigators believe they have recovered all they can without moving the plane’s fuselage. CBS reported the search for remains will stop at dusk and pick back up tomorrow.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said they do not yet have the list of plane passengers or know how many people from Wichita or Kansas were on the plane, but she said the National Transportation Security Board was working to inform all next of kin and told her the manifest could be out sometime tomorrow afternoon.
President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on aviation safety that orders a review of federal aviation hiring and safety decisions to undo the “damage” Trump said was done by former President Joe Biden’s diversity policies, and while signing it he reiterated the unproven claim that diversity, equity and inclusion policies may have played a role in the crash.
The air traffic controller who was handling helicopters near the airport Wednesday night was also directing commercial planes in take off and landing, jobs that are usually assigned to two separate people, according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report seen by the Times, which also reported the tower at the airport has been understaffed for years. CNN also reported the tower was understaffed and had one person doing two jobs, citing an unnamed air traffic control source.
Army officials confirmed that two pilots of the helicopter—one man and one woman—and a male staff sergeant crew member were killed in the collision. Their bodies have been recovered.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called Trump’s claim the FAA was made unsafe by DEI hiring practices “despicable,” and criticized him for what he called his move to “fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe” (within a day of taking office, Trump had fired the head of the Transportation Security Administration and eliminated all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee).
Trump, in a press briefing, boasted about an executive order he issued last week ending diversity, equity and inclusion hiring within the FAA, and suggested without proof that people with “severe intellectual disabilities” had been hired as air traffic controllers under the Obama and Biden administrations. He said only “naturally talented geniuses” would be hired for the job under his new policies. He later said “we don’t know that necessarily (the crash) is even the controller’s fault.”
When asked how he could have determined diversity hiring practices were to blame for the crash without evidence, Trump said, “because I have common sense. And, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”
Trump appointed Chris Rocheleau, a 22-year veteran of the FAA currently serving as deputy administrator, as acting commissioner of the agency. The FAA has not had a chief since Mike Whitaker resigned on Jan. 20.
Trump confirmed there are no survivors in the crash and said called the incident a “real tragedy” while thanking the local first responders for being “so quick, so fast” to respond.
FAA employees were not part of a sweeping buyout offer made by Trump to millions of federal employees earlier this week in an attempt to downsize the federal workforce, the Associated Press reported citing an anonymous source.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Army helicopter involved in the crash was was flying from Fort Belvoir, Va., was being flown by “a fairly experienced crew” and was conducting “a required annual night evaluation” flight.
Newly appointed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ignored a question from a reporter at a press conference Thursday morning asking if an acting director of the FAA has been appointed after the former chief, Whitaker, who was pressured for months by presidential confidant Elon Musk to resign, stepped down earlier this month.
Duffy said the crash was “absolutely” preventable, adding that there was “not a breakdown” in communication between the military helicopter and the commercial plane, and that U.S. military helicopters routinely fly near the Potomac River.
Washington’s Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said emergency responders were switching over from a rescue to a recovery operation, adding “at this point we don’t believe there are any survivors.” Donnelly added that responders have recovered the bodies of 27 of the 64 people onboard the plane and one of the three people onboard the Black Hawk helicopter.
Duffy said authorities located both the crashed aircraft and the passenger plane’s fuselage, which was in split into three and found in waist-deep water in the Potomac River.
After the crash, all takeoffs and landings were halted at Reagan National and officials said operations at the airport will remain halted at least until 11:00 a.m. EST on Thursday.
Trump posted about the incident on his Truth Social platform and questioned the helicopter operator and air controllers’ handling of the situation: “The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News host Sean Hannity that Trump has been briefed about the incident and both federal and local law enforcement are working “to try to save as many lives as possible.”
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Crucial Quote
“As one nation we grieve for every previous soul that has been taken from us so suddenly,” Trump said. “We are in mourning.”
What Do We Know About The Crash?
A Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet operated by PSA Airlines, a regional carrier owned by American Airlines, collided with a Black Hawk military helicopter while approaching the runway at Reagan airport for landing. The incident took place shortly before 9 p.m. local time according to the FAA. The Bombardier jet—which originated in Wichita, Kansas—was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, American Airlines said, making the flight fairly full (a CRJ700 regional jet can usually seat between 60 and 80 passengers). The chopper involved in the crash was a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter carrying three people, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed in a press conference after midnight on Thursday.
What Do We Know About The Rescue And Recovery Efforts?
In press conference early on Thursday, Donnelly said the first units arrived at the scene at 8:58 p.m. local time, 10 minutes after they first received an alert, “and found an aircraft in the water and began rescue operations.” Donnelly said 300 emergency responders are on the scene and they are working on a “highly complex operation” due to “extremely rough” and windy conditions.
What Do We Know About The Number Of Casualties?
There were 60 people aboard the plane, along with four crew members, and three people in the helicopter. Officials said Thursday there are believed to be no survivors.
What Do We Know About The Passengers Onboard?
Details about the passengers on board the plane and the helicopter are limited. However, U.S. Figure Skating—the official governing body for figure skating in the country—said “several members” of its community were on the plane. “These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the national development camp held in conjunction with the US figure skating championships in Wichita, Kansas.” Russian state news outlet TASS reported that a former world champion pairs figure skater duo from the country was also onboard the plane.
What Have Other Federal Officials Said About The Potomac Plane Crash?
Vice President J.D. Vance wrote on X: “Please say a prayer for everyone involved in the mid-air collision near Reagan airport this evening. We’re monitoring the situation, but for now let’s hope for the best.” Transport Secretary Sean Duffy announced he was “on site at the FAA HQ and closely monitoring the situation,” while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth noted the Pentagon was “actively monitoring” and is “poised to assist if needed.” Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, tweeted: “We are deploying every available US Coast Guard resource for search and rescue efforts in this horrific incident at DCA.”
Key Background
The area around Reagan National Airport is heavily congested and tightly controlled, with a busy airport sitting in close proximity to sensitive sites like the Pentagon and Washington, D.C. Serious crashes involving large passenger jets are exceedingly rare in the United States. Wednesday’s incident is the first fatal crash of a U.S. commercial airliner since the the Colgan Air crash in upstate New York in 2009, which killed 50 people. It is the deadliest aviation disaster in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed in New York and killed all 260 people on board. The last crash on U.S. soil involving a commercial airliner took place in 2013, when a plane operated by South Korean carrier Asiana Airlines crashed in San Francisco, killing three people and injuring 187.
Further Reading
U.S. And Russian Figure Skaters Onboard D.C. Plane—What We Know About The Crash Victims (Forbes)
Passenger jet collides with Army helicopter while landing at Reagan Washington National Airport (Associated Press)
The maker of Canvas, the software used by thousands of schools and universities around the world, said on Monday that it had reached a deal with the hackers that recently breached its systems for the return of stolen data and the destruction of any copies.
ShinyHunters, a hacking group, had claimed responsibility for the attack on Instructure, the Salt Lake City-based company that provides Canvas to about half of all colleges and universities in North America.
The hackers said they had accessed the data of more than 275 million users at nearly 9,000 schools worldwide, including private conversations between students and teachers as well as personal identifying information such as names and email addresses. Canvas was shut down for hours after the cyberattack on Thursday.
The agreement, Instructure said in a statement, involved the return of the stolen data and confirmation that the data had been destroyed at the hackers’ end. Instructure added that it had been informed that none of its customers would face extortion as a result of the theft.
“While there is never complete certainty when dealing with cybercriminals, we believe it was important to take every step within our control to give customers additional peace of mind, to the extent possible,” the company said.
Instructure did not say what it had given the hackers in exchange for the return of the data. The company did not immediately respond to questions about the deal.
Canvas has more than 30 million active users around the world, according to Instructure. The platform is used by teachers and students for coursework management and communications. Instructure said the data compromised in the hack included usernames, email addresses, course names, enrollment information and messages.
ShinyHunters on Thursday claimed the attack in a message that appeared on students’ Canvas pages and was obtained by The New York Times. The group warned that it would leak an unspecified amount of data on May 12 if it did not receive a response from Instructure. In its May 3 ransom note, the group had threatened to leak “several billions of private messages among students and teachers.”
Not much is known about ShinyHunters, which is believed to have been formed around 2020. Its goal appears to be to obtain personal records and sell them. One of its high-profile attacks was against Ticketmaster in 2024, when the hackers said they had stolen the user information of more than 500 million customers.
Instructure said it first detected unauthorized activity in Canvas on Apr. 29, and again on May 7. The company said it took Canvas offline to investigate the breach, and also informed the F.B.I., the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other international law enforcement partners.
Instructure did not immediately respond to questions about whether any law enforcement agencies were involved in its dealings with the hackers. The F.B.I. advises against paying ransom to hackers, saying it does not guarantee data security and encourages attackers to target more victims.
The National Quarantine Center is located at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Nebraska Medicine
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Nebraska Medicine
Sixteen of the 18 passengers transferred to the U.S. from a cruise ship where there was an outbreak of hantavirus arrived in Omaha, Neb., on Monday for evaluation after disembarking the vessel in Spain’s Canary Islands over the weekend.
Of the 15 U.S. citizens and one dual U.S.-British citizen who arrived in Nebraska, all but one are currently being housed in the National Quarantine Unit. That patient tested positive for the virus and was being housed in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, officials said at a Monday news conference. The 15 people in the quarantine unit will continue to be monitored for signs of the illness.
Passengers carry their belongings in plastic bags after being evacuated from the MV Hondius after docking in the Granadilla Port on Sunday in Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands, Spain.
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Nebraska may seem an unlikely location to process these individuals, but it is home to the National Quarantine Unit — the only federally funded quarantine unit in the U.S. — and the separate Nebraska Biocontainment Unit. They are highly specialized facilities located at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and widely considered among the best in the world.
The $1 million, five-room biocontainment unit was dedicated in 2005. It was a joint project with Nebraska Health and Human Services and the UNMC. It is set up to safely provide medical care for patients with highly hazardous and infectious diseases and was used in 2014 to treat two doctors infected with Ebola. The National Quarantine Unit was completed in late 2019. It cost nearly $20 million, according to the Associated Press. Both facilities were used during the COVID-19 epidemic.
“We are prepared for situations exactly like this,” Dr. Michael Ash, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, said in a statement. “Our teams have trained for decades alongside federal and state partners to make sure we can safely provide care while protecting our staff and the broader community. We are proud to support this national effort.”
Two additional U.S. passengers on the cruise ship — a couple, with one showing symptoms of hantavirus — were transferred for monitoring to Emory University Hospital, where another advanced biocontainment facility is located.
When the biocontainment unit was first dedicated more than 20 years ago, the biggest concerns were anthrax attacks and severe acute respiratory syndrome, more commonly known as SARS, Dr. Phil Smith, who spearheaded the efforts at Nebraska Medical Center to create the biocontainment unit, told the AP in 2020. Smith died last year.
A hallway leading to rooms at the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
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Nebraska Medicine
The quarantine unit features 20 negative-pressure rooms designed to keep potentially harmful particles from escaping by maintaining lower air pressure inside than outside the rooms. The single-occupancy rooms provide patients with attached bathrooms, exercise equipment and Wi-Fi, according to the medical center.
“We have protocols in the quarantine unit that provide for safe care of these of these persons, including just all the activities of daily living so that they can … have a comfortable stay but also have it in an area that’s protected and limits spread of the pathogen,” Dr. Michael Wadman, the medical director of the National Quarantine Unit, said at a Friday news conference.
The biocontainment unit, by contrast, is a patient-care space where people are able to receive medical treatment, Dr. Angela Hewlett, medical director of the biocontainment unit, told reporters Monday.
She emphasized that the facility — which has a 10-bed capacity — operates independently from the quarantine unit and has its own dedicated air-handling system. “We don’t share [it] with any of the rest of the facility,” she said, noting that the unit uses rooftop HEPA filtration and is designed “very differently” from what most people typically imagine in a hospital setting.
One of the rooms in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit.
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Nebraska Medicine
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, speaking at Monday’s news conference, welcomed the recently arrived patients, who are among nearly 150 people from 23 different countries who were aboard the MV Hondius when the illness most commonly transmitted to humans through contact with infected rodents broke out. As of Monday, the World Health Organization has reported at least nine cases of hantavirus, including three deaths.
“We’re glad that you’re here,” Pillen said. “We’re going to ensure that you have the best world-class care possible.”
Pillen also sought to reassure Nebraskans that the facilities are safe and secure: “We’re working diligently to ensure no one leaves the security in an unsecured way at an inappropriate time,” he said. “No one poses a risk to public health, just walking out the front door of the streets of Omaha.”
The hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship has been identified as the Andes strain of the illness, one that can be spread, though rarely, from person-to-person, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can cause severe respiratory disease, with early flu-like symptoms.
“The Andes variant of this virus does not spread easily, and it requires prolonged, close contact with someone who is already symptomatic,” according to Adm. Brian Christine, the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who spoke at Monday’s news conference. “Even so, we have taken this situation very seriously from the very start.”
“The risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low,” he said.
The full quarantine period for hantavirus is 42 days, Christine said, but he added that the patients would be allowed to go home if they remained asymptomatic.
“Right now, the passengers that are all in the assessment phase — they’re going to be here for at least a few days while we do assessments and the coordination on what happens next,” he said, adding that they had the option to remain in the quarantine facility for the full period, for “the safest and most effective option for them.”
new video loaded: Americans Exposed to Hantavirus on Cruise Ship Arrive in United States
transcript
transcript
Americans Exposed to Hantavirus on Cruise Ship Arrive in United States
Eighteen passengers who were aboard the MV Hondius, a cruise ship with a deadly hantavirus outbreak, landed in Omaha on a U.S. government medical flight. The passengers were being monitored at medical facilities in Nebraska and Georgia.
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We’re working diligently to ensure no one leaves the security in an unsecured way at an inappropriate time. No one who poses a risk to public health is walking out the front door of the streets of Omaha or beyond.
By Axel Boada
May 11, 2026
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