Dozens of people are feared to have been killed after a passenger jet carrying 64 people collided midair with a helicopter and crashed into a river in Washington DC.
A search and rescue operation is underway in the Potomac River after the plane struck a Black Hawk military helicopter as it was coming in to land at Ronald Reagan Airport before plunging into the water.
The plane, a PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet, was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members. There were three soldiers aboard the Sikorsky H-60, a Defense Department official told newsmen.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the midair crash occurred around 9 p.m. EST when a regional jet that had departed from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military Blackhawk helicopter while on approach to an airport runway. It occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over three miles south of the White House and the Capitol.
US Senator Ted Cruz said there are “fatalities” and CBS reported that 18 bodies have been pulled from the water.
Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center shows two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to conjoin in a fireball.
President Trump said he had been briefed on the “terrible accident” and said of any victims: “may God bless their souls”.
In a post on Truth Social, he claimed the collision “should have been prevented” and suggested the helicopter flew into the plane’s path.
