In an absolutely horrific tragedy to strike late in the night on Wednesday, January 29, an Army helicopter that appears to be one of the models used for transporting VIPs crashed into an American Airlines flight over the Potomac. The helicopter appears to have been “flying dark” when it crashed.
President Trump, summarizing much of what was known about the crash itself shortly before midnight on Wednesday night, said, “The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn.”
He continued, on a similar note about the weird conditions that seem to have led to the crash, saying, “Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explained much the same thing, saying, “This was a clear night last night. The helicopter was in a standard pattern, this flight pattern is seen oftentimes if you live in D.C. The American Airlines flight coming into land was in a standard flight pattern coming into DCA. So, this was not unusual with military aircraft flying over the river and aircraft coming into land.”
Posters on X (formerly Twitter), quickly chimed in with more information that they scrounged up. Namely, commenters drew attention to the flight path data of the helicopter that caused the crash, which showed that the helicopter that was “flying dark” had left Langley, where the CIA is headquartered, shortly before the crash. Here is the image of that flight path:
One poster on X who drew attention to the matter, Jordan Crowler, wrote, “The helo involved in the terrible plane crash tonight in DC, is not any ol helicopter. It’s a VH-60 Blackhawk VIP Transport. We don’t know who was onboard, but it was tracked leaving right at CIA Headquarters…according to this flight data.”
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It is unclear, however, if the VIP transport helicopter left Langley itself or simply turned on its transponder near the Central Intelligence Agency’s Langley base. The flight data on that aspect of the matter is, as of now, somewhat murky and unclear. However, Ron McLendon II, the Public Affairs Deputy Director for Joint Task Force-National Capital Region/Military District of Washington, said in a statement to NBC News that the helicopter was on a training flight.
“While performing a training mission a United States Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, Davison Army Airfield, Fort Belvoir, Va., collided in midair with an American Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet Flight 5342 last night at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport,” he said. The VH-60 variant of the Blackhawk flies out of that base, and it is that unit that flies it.
In any case, adding clarification on the helicopter identification issue, a commenter on the post from Crowler noted that the gold top of the crashed Blackhawk indicates it was a VIP transport helicopter. That commenter said, “Presidential transport is provided by the marines. VIP by the Army. Appears it was a Department of Defense Gold Top Blackhawk VIP Transport.”
The Wall Street Journal seemed to confirm that identification, noting in its report on the crash that, “The Black Hawk helicopter has two seats for pilots and eight additional seats for passengers. It has a gold top, which is usually for VIPs but no senior U.S. officials were on board, a Defense official said.”
Sadly, it appears that all of the crash victims perished in the Fire and Emergency Services Chief for Washington, DC John Donnelly said, speaking of the attempts to recover the 60 passengers on the American Airlines flight, “We are now at a point where we’re switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. At this point, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident.”
Transportation Secretary Duffy also noted that the crash is a sad warning that safety, though expected, might not always be the case. He said, “Safety is our expectation. Everyone who flies in American skies expects that we fly safely, that when you depart the airport, you get to your destination safely. That didn’t happen last night. You should be assured that when you fly, you’re safe.”