Investigators look for answers in worst U.S. airline crash in two decades
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The sky above D.C. on Wednesday night was dark, hardly any illumination from the moon, cold wind blowing across the city. And then, just before 9 p.m., Washington, D.C. air traffic control staff saw a bright explosion. An American Airlines regional passenger jet flying from Wichita, Kansas, into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport collided with an Army Blackhawk helicopter.

Both aircraft plunged into the frigid Potomac waters below. Some 300 responders rushed to help, searched through debris, searched for any survivors among the 64 people aboard the American flight and the three on board the helicopter. John Donnelly, chief of DC Fire and EMS, told reporters Thursday morning that they worked through extreme conditions. They found heavy wind. They found ice on the water and they're

Early this morning, the search and rescue mission became a recovery mission. No survivors are expected. Donnelly said he was confident that all of the bodies would ultimately be recovered from the collision.

Communities across the country were affected by the crash, but grief hung particularly heavy in Wichita, where the plane originated. In an emotional press conference, Mayor Lily Wu said the tragedy will unite D.C. and Wichita forever. At this time, our community needs to come together to support the family members who have been impacted.

to come together in honor of those individuals on that flight.

And as a council, we will lead in bringing this community together. Grief was also palpable in Norwood, Massachusetts, near Boston, where members of the skating club of Boston mourned the passengers affiliated with their organization. Dr. Tinley Albright is one of the longest-serving members of the club and a former Olympic champion. I really can't believe that it happened because I picture them right here.

The coaches always stood at that entrance. The skaters just flew all over the ice doing remarkable things, inspiring all of us. 1994 silver medalist Nancy Kerrigan, an alum of the skating club, joined the press conference, she said, because she herself needed support. The kids here really work hard. Their parents work hard to be here. But I just feel for...

the athletes, the skaters, their families, but anyone that was on that plane, not just the skaters, because it's just such a tragic event. Consider this. The country is reeling from the most significant domestic airline disaster in more than two decades. Coming up, we remember those lost and dig into what could have gone wrong. From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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It's Consider This from NPR. Here in Washington and across the country, Americans are mourning the deaths of 67 people killed in the worst airline disaster in decades. At this hour, as we publish, recovery efforts continue, and so does the investigation into what happened.

It's being led by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. NPR's Tom Bowman and Joel Rose have been following the investigation. I spoke to them both about the latest. Joel, I'm going to let you kick us off. Federal safety investigators held a briefing today. What did they say? The National Transportation Safety Board gave its first public update on the investigation. Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said,

promised a thorough investigation, one that will follow the facts. And she was asked several times to speculate about the possible causes of the collision. And she asked for patience. You need to give us time. We need to verify information to make sure it is accurate. That's best for you. That's important for the families. It's important for legislators who are seeking answers.

Investigators did say that the passenger jet plunged into the Potomac River in a, quote, "quick, rapid impact."

and also said that they have not yet recovered the so-called black boxes from the plane, the cockpit voice and flight data recorders. But investigators did express confidence that they will be able to find them. They think the helicopter also had one of these recording devices that also could offer some clues about what happened. Yeah, on the helicopter, Tom Bowman, you cover the military. This was a military Black Hawk helicopter. What do we know about it?

Well, Mary Louise, the Blackhawk was on an annual proficiency training flight out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, just south of Washington. It had a crew of three, a male instructor pilot with 1,000 hours of flight time considered experience, and a woman co-pilot with 500 hours considered normal for a pilot.

There was also a male crew member aboard. All had night vision goggles. The Black Hawk was heading south along the Potomac in the direction of National Airport, and like the plane was in touch with the tower. Now, there's a flight corridor for helicopters, and the maximum height is 200 feet. But sources I talked with say it appears the Black Hawk was flying higher, maybe more than 100 feet higher at the time of the crash.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegsteth would only say there was some sort of an elevation issue. The investigation, of course, will determine whether the helicopter was in the corridor and at the right altitude. Say more about that. Are there working theories for what might have been going on with it? Well, I spoke with Brad Bowman. He's a defense analyst and former Black Hawk pilot who commanded a company and flew this very same route after the 9-11 attacks. He says...

And these kinds of proficiency flights, an instructor pilot can sometimes test the less experienced pilot, watching to see, you know, how the pilot responds to different situations. But he said such a technique is probably not a good idea in such a busy area. And, of course, if the helicopter was flying that much higher, it would be a good idea to have a more experienced pilot.

The instructor should have corrected it immediately. I want people just to remember the history here because the accident sadly ends a remarkable streak. No major plane crashes for many years in the U.S. There have been close calls, though. Exactly. The last major accident was back in 2009 in Buffalo when 50 people were killed.

This has been really an unprecedented era of safety for air travel in the U.S. But that said, there have been signs of strain in the aviation system, especially as traffic rebounded sharply after the COVID pandemic. We have seen a number of close calls on runways and near airports all over the country and concern about a shortage of air traffic controllers. We don't know yet if that was a factor here. I want to stress that the NTSB will hopefully give us an answer, just maybe not as quickly as everyone wants.

NPR's Joel Rose and Tom Bowman. Thanks to you both. You're welcome. You're welcome.

More than a dozen passengers on the American Airlines flight that crashed last night in Washington, D.C., were young, elite figure skaters, also their coaches and family members. They were returning home from a competition in Wichita, Kansas. And today, the figure skating community is in mourning over their loss, as authorities have said there are no survivors. My co-host, Sasha Pfeiffer, spoke with NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan.

How much do we know at this point about who exactly was on the plane? Yeah, we're still awaiting confirmation on the full list of names, but I can share details about some of them. Two teenage figure skaters, Gina Hahn and Spencer Lane, who were on their way back to their homes in New England. Both of them were members of the Skating Club of Boston, which is one of the oldest training clubs in the country. They were traveling with their mothers, Jen Hahn and Christine Lane, who were also on the flight.

along with two coaches who were based in Boston. They were Jinya Shishkova and Vadim Nomov, a husband and wife pair, who were competitors themselves for Russia back in the 1990s. They were world champions then, coaches now. In addition to those six, we know that there were others too, some of them from the D.C. area, although we're still waiting to confirm those details. We mentioned that they were coming home from a competition. Tell us more about why they were in Kansas. Yeah, so there was a major competition in Wichita last week, the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

That wrapped up on Sunday. And then for a few days afterward, U.S. Figure Skating, which is the governing body for the sport in this country, held a development camp for elite young skaters. So this group was largely returning home from that development camp, which is especially tragic because it's a major achievement to be invited to a camp like that, meaning the athletes who are on the plane were some of the most promising young figure skaters in the country who had just had one of the most exciting achievements of their young careers.

And then it, you know, turned into tragedy. These are athletes who may have had dreams of competing in the Winter Olympics. Not next year. They're a little too young for that probably, but perhaps in 2030. Yeah. So given all that, how is the figure skating community absorbing this news? I mean, obviously people are devastated. I think...

Um, I can't emphasize enough that this is just not that big a world, this figure skating community, a very small group of these elite athletes and coaches who are regularly flying all across the country for competitions and training camps. And so to lose them like this has really shocked people. Um, one of them we heard from today is Doug Zaghive. He's the head of the skating club of Boston, that training club that we mentioned that some of these skaters and coaches belong to. And here's how he put it this morning.

Skating is a very close and tight-knit community. These kids and their parents, they're here at our facility in Norwood six, sometimes seven days a week. It's a close, tight bond. And I think for all of us, we have lost family.

I think you can really hear it in his voice there, just how hard this is hitting. Yeah, you know, Becky, at our planning meeting this morning for today's show, one of the staff members mentioned this eerie fact, which is that there was another plane crash in 1961 involving U.S. figure skaters. I hadn't known that. That's true? Yeah, oh, definitely. Yeah, that was a flight from New York to Brussels that was carrying what was then the entire U.S. figure skating team en route to a world competition in Prague.

They all died in that crash back then. And so I think that's part of what has been so shocking and upsetting to this community today. You know, back then it was like you lost this entire generation of top level athletes plus their coaches. And I think those who have been around the U.S. figure skating world for a long time will tell you that it did take decades for the sport here to recover from that crash.

And so now today, losing all these talented young skaters and their coaches, there's a sense that, you know, not only is it a loss for right now, but it's also a loss for the future of the sport as well. And folks are just feeling like, how is it possible that this could have happened to us twice? Right. Huge reverberations for years to come. That's NPR's Becky Sullivan. Thank you, Becky. You're so welcome. Thank you.

This episode was produced by Brianna Scott and Alina Burnett. It was edited by Courtney Dorning, Andrew Sussman, Russell Lewis, Nadia Lancey, Tinbeat Ermias, John Ketchum, and Patrick Jaron-Waddanonan. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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