The US president has suggested the tragedy was due to human error
The collision of a US Army helicopter and a civilian airliner that killed 67 people could have been prevented, President Donald Trump has said, questioning air traffic controllers’ actions.
The H-60 BlackHawk helicopter collided with Flight 5342 that was on its final approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday evening. Rescue teams have not recovered any survivors from the freezing Potomac River.
“It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn,” Trump posted on his TruthSocial platform early on Thursday.
The president also questioned why the control tower had failed to instruct the helicopter crew what to do.
“This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!” Trump added.
At 9pm local time, when the crash happened, the airport reported clear skies, with 16km visibility and winds from the northwest. The air temperature was 10C, but parts of the Potomac River were still frozen from an earlier cold snap.
The passenger jet was a Bombardier CRJ700 operated by PSA, a subsidiary of American Airlines. The flight from Wichita, Kansas was on landing approach to Runway 33, with 60 passengers and four crew members on board, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has said.
Among the passengers were several athletes, coaches and family members returning from the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.
Nearly 300 first responders were deployed to sift the wreckage for survivors, but found none as of Thursday morning. Operations were soon shifted from rescue to recovery.
