On the night of Jan. 29, an American Airlines flight attempting to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. collided midair with an army helicopter, killing all passengers aboard both aircraft. The exact cause of the collision remains unknown.

This devastating incident was the most fatal aviation disaster in the U.S. since 2001, killing 64 passengers on the jetliner and three soldiers aboard the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. The passengers aboard the jet included several members of the Skating Club of Boston returning from a developmental ice skating camp in Wichita, Kansas. Among the victims were two young aspiring Olympic ice skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane and their mothers, and Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, the 1994 world figure skating pairs champions. The soldiers aboard the helicopter were on a regular training flight when they were told to keep visual separation from the plane. They confirmed, then, less than 13 seconds later, the aircraft collided. 

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told AP News that the plane was making a normal approach when “the military aircraft came into the path” of the jet. 

The incident occurred in tightly controlled airspace near the White House, and the soldiers piloting the helicopter had flown the route multiple times before, begging the question of how such a tragedy could happen. The Federal Aviation Administration has been suffering from a shortage of air traffic control staff this year, leading to added responsibilities for already overworked staff. At the time of the crash, only one air traffic controller was responsible for directing all helicopter and plane traffic, as opposed to more normally assigned to the job. 

President Trump offered his sympathies about the crash as well as his concerns that diversity hiring efforts were a factor. He made several unproven claims that the FAA has hired people with severe mental disabilities. Though he acknowledged the cause of the crash is still unknown, when asked whether he believed the incident was caused by DEI hiring, he said, “It just could have been.”

Article by Alaya Drummond