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WASHINGTON (WDCW/NEXSTAR) – President Donald Trump is scheduled to clasp a briefing connected Thursday greeting concerning the deadly collision betwixt an American Airlines level and a subject chopper implicit the Potomac River.
The briefing was scheduled for 11 a.m. EST.
Trump, conscionable aft midnight connected Wednesday, had written connected societal media that the clang “looks similar it should person been prevented.”
“The airplane was connected a cleanable and regular enactment of attack to the airport. The chopper was going consecutive astatine the airplane for an extended play of time,” helium wrote.
“It is simply a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights connected the level were blazing, wherefore didn’t the chopper spell up oregon down, oregon turn. Why didn’t the power operation archer the chopper what to bash alternatively of asking if they saw the plane,” helium continued.
In a abstracted post, helium wrote, “What a unspeakable nighttime this has been. God bless you all!”
On Thursday morning, the president confirmed helium had been afloat briefed connected the crash.
“May God Bless their souls,” helium wrote connected Truth Social. “Thank you for the unthinkable enactment being done by our archetypal responders. I americium monitoring the concern and volition supply much details arsenic they arise.”
Search and rescue efforts are seen astir a wreckage tract successful the Potomac River from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, aboriginal Thursday morning, Jan. 30, 2025, successful Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)On Wednesday night, the plane, operated by PSA Airlines (a wholly owned subsidiary of American Airlines), was getting acceptable to onshore astatine the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) erstwhile it collided with the United States Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter.
Flight 5342 departed from Wichita, Kansas, and was carrying 60 passengers on with 4 unit members. Three soldiers were onboard the service helicopter.
At a property league connected Thursday morning, officials confirmed that dozens of bodies had been pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River, wherever the downed craft was located upside down successful 3 sections.
Crews were inactive searching for different casualties but did not judge determination were immoderate survivors, which would marque it the deadliest U.S. aerial crash in astir 24 years.
“We are present astatine the constituent wherever we are switching from a rescue cognition to a betterment operation,” said John Donnelly, the occurrence chief, successful the nation’s capital. “We don’t judge determination are immoderate survivors.”
Among those presumed to beryllium dormant are figure skaters and coaches (and household members) who were traveling location from the National Development Camp held successful conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championship successful Kansas, Nexstar’s WDCW reported.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov further confirmed that Russian fig skaters Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the pairs rubric astatine the 1994 World Championships and competed astatine the Winter Olympics twice, were passengers.
The clang remains nether probe by the Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board and the United States Army.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
