BBC News
No survivors are expected after a passenger plane collided in mid air with a helicopter near Washington DC on Wednesday evening, officials in the US say.
The plane was carrying 64 passengers and crew when it landed in the Potomac River after the collision, while the helicopter had three soldiers on board.
Figure skaters from the US were among those who were on board the aeroplane. Russia has confirmed that some of its citizens were also on board.
Search and rescue teams worked through the night to scour the waters in freezing temperatures. Authorities say they have now switched to a recovery operation.
What happened?
At around 21:00 local time (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday, a PSA Airlines jet operating as American Airlines 5342 collided with a US Army helicopter as it approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The passenger plane broke into multiple pieces and sunk several feet into the river, while the helicopter ended up upside down on the water, reports said.
The plane, a Bombardier CRJ700, departed from Wichita, Kansas and was carrying 60 passengers and four crew, American Airlines said.
The Pentagon said the helicopter involved was a Sikorsky H-60 that took off from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
Three US soldiers were on board, Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said. Another official said it was on a training flight, and it belonged to B Company, 12th Aviation Battalion from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
A clip published online by LiveATC.net, which streams air traffic, purports to capture the air traffic control conversation in the moments before the crash. A controller can reportedly be heard warning the helicopter about the plane, but receiving no reply. The audio has not been verified by the BBC.
The FAA said it would investigate the incident, together with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
How many victims are there?
DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said in a Thursday morning update that officials “don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident”.
He said teams had recovered 27 bodies from the plane, and one from the helicopter.
A law enforcement source familiar with the investigation earlier told CBS that a higher number of at least 30 bodies had already been found.
US Figure Skating said “several members of our skating community were sadly aboard” the flight. It said this group comprised athletes, coaches and family members who were returning home from a development camp in Kansas.
Russian citizens were also on board, the Kremlin confirmed – after local media reported that ice skating coaches and former world champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were on the plane.
About 300 responders on rubber boats were earlier deployed to search for survivors, Donnelly said in an earlier update. “The challenge is access, there is wind, pieces of ice (on the water). It is dangerous and hard to work in,” he said.
What are eyewitnesses saying?
Ari Schulman told NBC Washington that he saw the plane crash while driving on the George Washington Parkway, which runs along the airport.
He said the plane’s approach looked normal, until he saw the aircraft bank hard to the right, with “streams of sparks” running underneath, illuminating its belly.
At that point, he said he knew that it looked “very, very wrong”. Having seen plane landings there in the past, he said a plane’s underside should not have been visible in the dark.
The sparks, he said, resembled a “giant roman candle” and went from the plane’s nose to its tail.
Jimmy Mazeo said he saw the crash while having dinner with his girlfriend at a park near the airport.
He recalled seeing what looked like a “white flare” in the sky. He said planes flying into Ronald Reagan Airport appeared to have been flying in “irregular patterns”.
Mr Mazeo said he did not think much of what he saw until emergency services started arriving at the scene.
What are US officials saying?
President Donald Trump said he had been fully briefed on the the “terrible accident” and that he was monitoring the situation closely.
“May God Bless their souls,” he said in a statement. “Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders.
On his TruthSocial social media account, he has also raised questions about how the incident could have happened, writing: “This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”
Vice-President JD Vance asked for prayers for those who were in the incident.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, whose appointments were just recently confirmed, also said they were monitoring the situation.
Asked if flight paths near Ronald Reagan airport would be changed after the incident, Duffy said “we will take appropriate action if necessary”. He added: “There will be a review of what happened here tonight.”
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom expressed his “deep sorrow” about the collision in a video which has been posted to the airline’s website.
That was echoed by Roger Marshall, a US senator representing Kansas, where the plane had travelled from. He described a “heartbreak beyond measure”.
What’s the US’s air safety record?
Major incidents of this kind are relatively rare in the US. The most recent comparable crash was in 2009, according to a list compiled by Reuters.
That year, an aircraft crashed on approach to landing in Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 people on board and one person on the ground.
The airspace above Washington DC is both busy and highly controlled. It is used by domestic and international traffic using two airports, and there are extra factors of presidential flights, heavy military traffic and flights around the Pentagon.
Passenger airliners must follow fixed flight plans, said the BBC’s transport correspondent Sean Dilley. In uncontrolled airspace, military pilots operate under strict instruction of air traffic controllers but unlike their civilian counterparts, they have freedom to deviate and a duty to “see and avoid” other aircraft.
