DC plane crash live updates: Air traffic controller ‘left shift early’ before American Airlines disaster

Loved ones of some of the D.C. plane crash victims created four verified GoFundMe pages in the wake of the tragedy.

The funds will go toward the funeral expenses and families of those whose lives were lost in the fatal collision: Casey Crafton, Wendy Jo Shaffer, Mikey Stovall, and Brielle and Justyna Beyer.

The Federal Aviation Administration is indefinitely limiting helicopter flights near Reagan National Airport, Reuters reported.

The restrictions, which will be in place “for the foreseeable future,” include helicopter routes 1 and 4 at the airport, according to the outlet.

The federal agency will also only permit police and medical helicopters in the area between the airport and nearby bridges.

The name is a misnomer; they are not actually black but high-visibility orange. Experts disagree how the nickname originated but it has become synonymous with the quest for answers when planes crash.

Many historians attribute their invention to Australian scientist David Warren in the 1950s. Earliest devices recorded limited data on wire or foil. Later devices switched to magnetic tape. Modern ones use computer chips inside hard casings.

There are two recorders: a Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) for pilot voices or cockpit sounds, and a separate Flight Data Recorder (FDR). Some devices combine both functions.

They are mandatory on civil flights and the aim is to preserve clues from cockpit sounds and data to help prevent future accidents, but not to determine wrongdoing or liability.

In broad terms, investigators say the FDR helps them analyze what happened and the CVR can – though not always – start to explain why. But experts caution that no two probes are the same and virtually all accidents involve multiple factors.

The disappearance in 2014 of Malaysian Airlines MH370 triggered debate about whether data should be streamed instead.

Air traffic control staffing at Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” on Wednesday night when a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines jet collided mid-air, according to a new report.

The air traffic controller who was monitoring helicopters near the airport on Wednesday evening was also monitoring planes taking off and landing, according to the FAA report reviewed by The New York Times. These jobs are typically assigned to two different people, the outlet reported.

The airport’s air traffic control tower had been understaffed for years, according to the Times, with just 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023 despite targets set by the FAA for 30 controllers.

Katie Hawkinson has the details.

Three U.S. Army soldiers were onboard the Black Hawk helicopter involved in the collision, a U.S. official has confirmed. Their names have not been officially released.

Another official said the Army UH-60 helicopter involved in the crash was based out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia. It was later confirmed that the aircraft and its crew were on a training flight.

The crew chief of the helicopter was later identified as Ryan O’Hara.

“Ryan is fondly remembered as a guy who would fix things around the ROTC gym as well as a vital member of the Rifle Team. Ryan leaves behind a wife and 1-year-old son,” the Parkview High School JROTC in Georgia wrote on Facebook.

In a statement shared on X, Georgia governor Brian Kemp paid tribute to both Lilley and O’Hara and sent his “deepest condolences” to their families and friends.

Andrew Eaves was also on the army helicopter, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said on X.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, Eaves’ wife, Carrie Eaves said: “We ask that you pray for our family and friends and for all the other families that are suffering today. We ask for peace while we grieve,” the post read.

“These families’ children do not need to suffer more pain,” she wrote.

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who famously landed a commercial airline on the Hudson River over a decade ago, has weighed in on the disastrous DC plane crash.

On Wednesday night, an American Airlines regional jet was on the final approach to Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., when it collided midair with a military Black Hawk helicopter shortly before 9 p.m. ET, before plunging into the Potomac River claiming the lives of 67 people.

“We’ve had to learn important lessons literally with blood too often, and we had finally gotten beyond that, to where we could learn from incidents and not accidents,” Captain Sullenberger told The New York Times in an interview.

Madeline Sherratt has the story.

The diversity program at the FAA that President Trump slammed Thursday was created under his presidency, the Washington Post first reported.

A release from April 2019 on the federal agency’s website reads: “The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today announced a pilot program to help prepare people with disabilities for careers in air traffic operations.A key focus for the FAA’s Office of Civil Rights is to identify specific opportunities for people with targeted disabilities, empower them and facilitate their entry into a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

“The “targeted disabilities” link is now broken but Wayback Machine from before and after his term shows the list of medical conditions he read yesterday.

The targeted disabilities are:

• Hearing (total deafness in both ears)
• Vision (Blind)
• Missing Extremities
• Partial Paralysis
• Complete Paralysis, Epilepsy
• Severe intellectual disability
• Psychiatric disability
• Dwarfism

“Individuals with targeted disabilities have the greatest difficulty obtaining employment. This is the only protected group for which Federal agencies may have a hiring goal,” the FAA website reads.

Search and rescue teams will have to brave chilly, murky waters, along with cold winds and rain as they comb through the Potomac River today.

According to the National Weather Service, gusts may pick up to 25 mph, while the chance of precipitation remains at 100 percent.

There will likely be patchy fog in the late morning until the early afternoon, the agency said.