Pilots tried to pull passenger jet’s nose up within seconds of deadly DC helicopter collision, preliminary NTSB data shows

Pilots tried to pull passenger jet’s nose up within seconds of deadly DC helicopter collision, preliminary NTSB data shows

Pilots tried to pull passenger jet’s nose up within seconds of deadly DC helicopter collision, preliminary NTSB data shows

Deadly Midair Collision Over Potomac River: Investigation Underway

Pilots from the 12th Aviation Battalion, stationed at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, frequently operate along the Potomac River and near Reagan National Airport, transporting high-ranking Army officials and other VIPs. These low-altitude flights are carefully coordinated to avoid conflicts with other aircraft.

Brad Bowman, a former Black Hawk pilot with the 12th Aviation Battalion who served on September 11, 2001, explained that helicopters lower their altitude significantly near Reagan to "deconflict with aircraft at the airport." Bowman, now a senior director at the Center on Military and Political Power, emphasized the critical coordination between pilots and Reagan tower controllers, calling it a "concert or orchestra of activity" that requires precision.

Recent reports suggest that air traffic control staffing shortages at Reagan may have contributed to aviation risks. In the past three years, at least two pilots reported near-misses with helicopters while landing at the airport.
Preliminary NTSB Findings

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the fatal midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Eagle Flight 5342 near Washington, DC. The crash, which is now the deadliest aviation disaster in the U.S. since 2001, is believed to have killed 67 people.

According to preliminary data from the flight recorder, the American Airlines regional jet appeared to increase its pitch just before impact. NTSB officials revealed that initial data suggests the passenger jet was flying at approximately 325 feet, while the helicopter’s altitude at the time of the accident remains unclear due to discrepancies in air traffic control data. Investigators are working to determine why the helicopter may have been flying above the designated corridor altitude.
Recovery Efforts and Casualties

Authorities confirmed that 42 bodies have been recovered from the Potomac River, with 38 positively identified. Among the victims were young figure skaters returning from a development camp in Kansas and three soldiers aboard the Black Hawk.

Efforts to retrieve the wreckage are ongoing. Crews from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving are assessing the area, with divers surveying the wreckage. Additional equipment is expected to arrive soon, but no removal of wreckage was scheduled for Saturday.

DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly Sr. emphasized that retrieving the plane’s fuselage from the water is essential to recovering all the victims. While officials believe they have located the remaining bodies, confirmation will only come once recovery operations are complete.


The NTSB will release a preliminary report in approximately 30 days, with the final report determining the cause of the disaster expected to take significantly longer.

If the impact did take place at 325 feet, it would have been well above the 200-feet limit to which helicopters are restricted in the corridor. The helicopter was using specialized corridors for law enforcement, medevac, military and government helicopters in the Washington area. Federal Aviation Administration charts show and the NTSB confirmed helicopters in the corridor must be at or below 200 feet above sea level.

Inman noted that investigators “currently don’t have the readout from the Black Hawk” so they cannot provide information about what altitude the helicopter was flying at. But “obviously an impact occurred, and I would say when an impact occurs, that is typically where the altitude of both aircraft were at the moment,” he said.

Flight tracking data from the moments before the fatal midair collision appear to show the helicopter flying 100 feet above its allowed altitude, and veering off the prescribed route along the Potomac River’s east side.

Both President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have raised the issue of altitude.

“The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot. It was far above the 200 foot limit,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Friday.

“Someone was at the wrong altitude,” Hegseth told Fox News on Friday morning. “Was the Black Hawk too high? Was it on course? Right now, we don’t quite know.”

The helicopter’s black box voice recorder has also been recovered with no signs of exterior damage, according to Inman.

The NTSB has begun interviewing air traffic control personnel, which will continue for a few days, Inman said.

The slight increase in pitch could show the pilots trying to pull the plane up after suddenly noticing the helicopter, Mary Schiavo, former inspector general at the Department of Transportation, told CNN Saturday.

“That tells us that they did not see the helicopter until just, you know, a second at impact,” Schiavo said. “But they had that one second to try to pull up.”

The discrepancy between the plane’s altitude and the helicopter altitude as reported by the air traffic controllers “is going to be the source of a lot of investigation,” Schiavo added.

Helicopter on training flight for emergencies

At the time of the collision, the Black Hawk military helicopter was training to evacuate government officials in the case of a catastrophic event.

Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for the Army’s aviation directorate, told reporters on Thursday the pilots were training for a scenario when “something really bad happens in this area, and we need to move our senior leaders.” That evacuation would be part of what Hegseth described as “a continuity of government mission.”

To carry out such an evacuation, Koziol added, pilots “do need to be able to understand the environment, the air traffic, the routes, to ensure the safe travel of our senior leaders throughout our government.”

The crash is thought to have killed 67 people, including three Army aviators in the Black Hawk: Capt. Rebecca Lobach, 28, who was identified Saturday; Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28; and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Lloyd Eaves, 39. While the Army released the names of the other two soldiers on board the Black Hawk on Friday, Lobach’s name had been withheld at her family’s request.