Illustrated Courier regular IKC
An American Airlines aircraft with 64 people aboard collided on Wednesday local time with a military chopper at an approach to landing at Ronald Reagan Washington Airport and fell to Potomac. The destiny of the victims is unknown; no surviving individual has yet been drawn from the river.
According to CBS News, at least 18 deaths have been recovered from the water so far, although the authorities have not officially confirmed these reports.
According to local emergency services, the accident occurred on Wednesday at 8.47 p.m. (on Thursday at 2.47 p.m. in Poland). Flying from Wichita, Kansas, the Bombardier CRJ 700 line of American Airlines, operated by PSA lines, collided with the UH-60 Black Hawk chopper just outside the Ronald Reagan Airport runway in Arlington, Washington. Both machines fell into the Potomac River; the aircraft fell apart, and the helicopter's hull was floating on the water upside down.
There is an emergency service from Washington, Maryland and Virginia, including divers and fireboats.
The destiny of the passengers is not known yet, but according to CNN, the water in the Potomac has a temperature of about 2 degrees Celsius and the chances of endurance of its occupants are low. Washington Fire Chief John Donnelly said it would most likely take a fewer days to find the victims. However, he besides drew attention to hard weather conditions, as well as to the low temperature and transparency of water, whose depth reaches 2.5 metres.
According to American Airlines, there were 60 passengers and 4 crew members aboard Bombardier, and the U.S. Land Army press service reported that 3 troops were on the helicopter. Black Hawk, who set out from the close Fort Belvoir base in Alexandria, Virginia, was to execute a regular training mission. The crew members were not elder military or VIP. The fresh Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth reported the initiation of the investigation.
The incidental recorded, among others, cameras placed on the Kennedy Center performance hall building located on the riverfront. The recording shows a plane approaching consecutive to landing from the south and its collision with a lower helicopter. After the collision, there was an explosion.
Located in Arlington Airport, 1 of the 3 in the U.S. capital region, serving mainly home flights, was closed by 23 local time.
President Donald Trump referred to the tragedy, who felt that it could be prevented.
"The plane was on an perfect and regular line of approach to the airport. The chopper has been flying right on the plane for a long time. Night's inactive hot. The plane's lights were shining, why didn't the chopper emergence or fall or turn? Why didn't the flight control tower tell the chopper what to do alternatively of asking if they saw the plane? It's a bad situation to prevent. WRONG!!!” wrote fact Social on his social network.
The president thus commented on the accident recordings and the dialog between the chopper pilot and the flight control tower. Prior to the crash, the controller drew the pilot's attention to an upcoming aircraft, asking him if he could see it, and asking him to keep his distance. The pilot confirmed he saw the plane.
This is the first commercial plane crash in the US since 2009, erstwhile the Colgan Air device crashed under Buffalo, killing 49 people. However, this is not the first time a plane crashed in Potomac. In 1982, Air Florida aircraft crashed just after taking off from Reagan Airport, hitting a bridge over that river.
Ronald Reagan Airport belongs to airports on the East Coast of the United States serving the most passengers. Military helicopters from the Pentagon and close military bases in Virginia, Washington, and Maryland are besides routinely flying over Washington.
From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)
