Washington crash: another collision avoided between a plane and a military helicopter only 24 hours before the tragedy

This Wednesday, January 29, 2025, a plane collided with a Black Hawk at Ronald Reagan Washington Airport, causing the death of 67 people. Another incident had been avoided in the same area the day before.

On the night of Wednesday to Thursday, January 30, 2025, a US airliner crashed into a helicopter over Washington. On board the two planes were 60 passengers, four crew members and three military personnel. But the day before, another tragedy was narrowly avoided, reports the agency Associated Press.

A military helicopter in the landing zone

On Tuesday, the day before the terrible crash, an Embraer E-175 (a short-haul regional aircraft) had been cleared to land on runway 19 at Ronald Reagan Washington Airport.

At the same time, the pilots were informed of the presence of a helicopter nearby. That's when the automatic collision avoidance system issued a “resolution advisory”in an attempt to avoid the traffic, and the plane went around, the news agency said.

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That maneuver “put the plane out of alignment for landing”, but the plane was able to land safely a few minutes later. “The military helicopter, call sign PAT1, was alerted of the plane's descent. Flight tracking sites show that the plane flew about 300 meters above the helicopter, a normally acceptable distance.”

“We are in mourning”

If a tragedy was avoided on Tuesday, the dozens of passengers on American Airlines Flight 5342 were not so lucky the next day.

There were no survivors. “There are unfortunately no survivors, this is a sad night for our capital, our nation. We are in mourning”, declared US President Donald Trump on January 30, 2025.

Read also: Washington crash: the helicopter's black box has been found and is “fully usable”, what we know

According to Doug Zeghibe, CEO of the Skating Club of Boston relayed by NBC News, 14 figure skaters died in the accident. “This is a major loss for our skating community”, the leader said. Among them, there are said to be six victims from his club, two coaches, two skaters and their mother.

After the disaster, Donald Trump also said he wanted to “seek to understand” what happened. He also spoke of an investigation that could last “three years” and specified that he had “appointed a commission right away”. “We're going to try to clear this up, we're going to make sure nothing similar happens. The military is going to do very extensive audits.”