WASHINGTON (WDCW/NEXSTAR) – President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a briefing on Thursday morning concerning the deadly collision between an American Airlines plane and a military helicopter over the Potomac River.
The briefing was scheduled for 11 a.m. EST.
Trump, just after midnight on Wednesday, had written on social media that the crash “looks like it should have been prevented.”
“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,” he wrote.
“It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane,” he continued.
‘No survivors’ after American Airlines plane, military helicopter collide near DCA
In a separate post, he wrote, “What a terrible night this has been. God bless you all!”
On Thursday morning, the president confirmed he had been fully briefed on the crash.
“May God Bless their souls,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders. I am monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arise.”
Search and rescue efforts are seen around a wreckage site in the Potomac River from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, early Thursday morning, Jan. 30, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
On Wednesday night, the plane, operated by PSA Airlines (a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines), was getting ready to land at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) when it collided with the United States Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter.
Flight 5342 departed from Wichita, Kansas, and was carrying 60 passengers along with four crew members. Three soldiers were onboard the army helicopter.
At a press conference on Thursday morning, officials confirmed that dozens of bodies had been pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River, where the downed aircraft was located upside down in three sections.
Crews were still searching for other casualties but did not believe there were any survivors, which would make it the deadliest U.S. air crash in nearly 24 years.
“We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” said John Donnelly, the fire chief, in the nation’s capital. “We don’t believe there are any survivors.”
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Among those presumed to be dead are figure skaters and coaches (and family members) who were traveling home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championship in Kansas, Nexstar’s WDCW reported.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov further confirmed that Russian figure skaters Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the pairs title at the 1994 World Championships and competed at the Winter Olympics twice, were passengers.
The crash remains under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board and the United States Army.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.