President Donald Trump confirmed at a press conference Thursday that everyone aboard the commercial airplane that crashed Wednesday night in Arlington, Virginia is dead.
“Sadly, there are no survivors,” Trump said at the White House briefing room. He called Wednesday a “a dark and excruciating night in our nation’s capital and in our nation’s history.”
Trump also criticized former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the Democratic Party more broadly for prioritizing diversity instead of competence in hiring.
Early Thursday morning, local authorities announced that everyone was feared dead after trying to find survivors and assessing the damage.
“We are switching from a rescue to a recovery operation,” said D.C. fire chief John Donnelly at a Thursday morning press conference. “At this point we do not believe there are any survivors.”
The airplane collided with a Blackhawk in clear conditions as it was landing at Ronald Reagan International Airport, the D.C. area’s most active airport. The plane had 60 passengers and four crew members, and it was coming to Washington from Wichita, Kansas. The Blackhawk had three crew members.
“Around 9 p.m. on Wednesday evening, emergency personnel at Reagan National Airport initiated their response to a crash between a passenger aircraft, identified by the FAA as American Eagle flight 5342, and a Sikorsky helicopter,” the airport said in a statement.
“Mutual aid from neighboring agencies were called to assist, and takeoffs and landings at the airport were halted for the remainder of the evening. We will continue to post information as it becomes available.”
As of Thursday morning, 28 bodies have been pulled from the Potomac river adjacent to the airport. Search and recovery efforts are still underway with hundreds of personnel on the scene. No other survivors are expected to be found, which would make this the deadliest air crash in the U.S. in nearly 24 years.
“A PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet collided in midair with a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter while on approach to Runway 33 at Reagan Washington National Airport around 9 p.m. local time. PSA was operating as Flight 5342 for American Airlines. It departed from Wichita, Kansas. The FAA and NTSB will investigate. The NTSB will lead the investigation,” the FAA said in a statement Wednesday.
The crash occurred right after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was sworn in following his confirmation on Wednesday. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are already investigating the collision and whether the aircrafts were in the correct flight paths.
Duffy did his best to reassure Americans during a Thursday morning press conference.
“Can I guarantee the American flying public that the United States has the most safe and secure airspace in the world? And the answer to that is, absolutely yes, we do,” he said. “We have early indicators of what happened here. And I will tell you, with complete confidence that we have the safest airspace in the world.”
Duffy has spoken to local and state officials including Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin (R) to work together on investigating and responding to the incident.
Trump said early Thursday morning that the crash was a preventable incident, to which Duffy agreed based on what he has seen so far.
“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. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Addressing Trump’s comments, Duffy said it was “absolutely” preventable but insisted there was no communication breakdown between the pilots of the two planes. He noted that the helicopter knew the airplane was in the area and both aircraft appeared to be on standard flight patterns.
In the wake of the plane crash, Trump appointed former chief operating officer of the National Business Aviation Administration Chris Rocheleau to be acting FAA chief. Trump made the announcement at the White House press conference, where he Rocheleau was on hand alongside Duffy, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy.
“The military does dangerous things. It does routine things on a regular basis. Tragically, last night, a mistake was made,” Hegseth said.
The Pentagon and the Army have already opened investigations into an “elevation issue,” Hegseth stated.