Arlington, Virginia, USA (AP) – A passenger plane with 60 passengers and four crew members on Wednesday with an army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, near Washington, before which it was implemented A great search and rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River.
So far it has not been informed about victims or the cause of the collision, but all the take -off and landings of the airport were suspended while helicopters of police agencies from the entire region flew over the area in search of survivors. Inflatable rescue rafts to the Potomac River were launched from a point near the airport along the George Washington highway, north of the airport.
US President Donald Trump said he had been “completely informed about this terrible accident” and, referring to passengers, he added: “May God bless his souls.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, for its initials in English) indicated that the shock clash occurred at approximately 9 at night, when a regional jet that had left Wichita, Kansas, crashed into a Blackhawk military helicopter while He approached an airport track. It happened in one of the most controlled and monitored air spaces in the world, just over 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) south of the White House and Capitol.
Researchers will try to rebuild the last moments of the aircraft before their collision, including contact with air traffic drivers, as well as a loss of altitude of the passenger jet.
American Airlines flight 5342 was heading towards the Reagan National at an altitude of approximately 121 meters (400 feet) and a speed of about 225 kilometers per hour (140 miles per hour) when it suffered a rapid loss of altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from your radio transpondor. The Jet Bimotor Bombardier CRJ-701 manufactured in Canada was manufactured in 2004 and can be configured to take up to 70 passengers.
A few minutes before the landing, the air traffic controllers asked the commercial jet that arrived if he could land on the shortest track, the 33, in the Reagan National, and the pilots said they could. Then the controllers authorized the plane to land on track 33. The flight tracking sites showed that the ship adjusted its approach to the new track.
Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if he had the plane that arrived in sight. The driver made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “Pat 25 passes behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
The plane’s radio transpondor stopped transmitting about 730 meters (2,400 feet) before the track, approximately half the river.
The tower immediately began to divert other Reagan airplanes.
A video of an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy center showed two sets of lights similar to those of aircraft that seemed to join in a fireball.
The Reagan National is located next to the Potomac River, a bit southwest of the city. It is a popular option because it is much closer than the Dulles International Airport, which is more inside in Virginia.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
(Tagstotranslate) General News
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