Dozens of people have died after an American Airlines passenger plane was in a mid-air crash with a military helicopter in Washington DC.

Sixty-four people were on the plane and there were three US soldiers in the helicopter.

Forty bodies have been recovered from the wreckage. No survivors are expected to be found.

Washington DC plane crash latest: Follow live updates

The crash, which happened as the jet sought to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport, is the worst civil aviation disaster in the US since 2001.

Here’s what we know about the passengers so far.

Pilots and a professor

The family of one of the American Airlines pilots killed in the crash has named him as Jonathan Campos.

His first officer, Samuel Lilley, was confirmed dead by his father Tim, who said he was due to get married this autumn.

“It is so devastating to lose someone who is loved so much,” he wrote on social media.

The parents of passenger Kiah Duggins also confirmed she was on board.

They said: “We are coming to terms with the grief associated with the loss of our beautiful and accomplished first-born. Please respect our family’s privacy at this time.”

Howard University, where Ms Duggins worked as a law professor, also asked for privacy and respect “during this difficult time”.

Raza Hussain told NBC News his wife Azra was also among those killed – and she was texting him just 20 minutes before she was due to land.

He said she told him “we’re landing in 20 minutes” and that he “had dinner waiting at home” before the collision.

The 26-year-old worked as a consultant in Washington DC and was married to her college sweetheart.

Paying tribute to her, he said: “My wife was such a giver. She made me feel so loved.”

Liz Keys was confirmed as another of the crash victims by her partner David Seidman, who she met at law school.

She worked as an attorney and was part of a sailing team in her spare time. The day of her crash is reported to have been her birthday.

Pergentino Malabed Jr was a police officer from the Phillippines who was in the US on work duties when he was killed in the crash.

The Philippine National Police said in a statement: “His untimely passing is a profound loss to the PNP, where he served with honour, integrity, and dedication throughout his career.”

Helicopter pilot and flight attendants

Helicopter pilot Andrew Eaves was confirmed dead by his wife Carrie on social media.

She said Mr Eaves was “one of the pilots in the Blackhawk”, asking people to share their pictures of him in his memory. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves also confirmed he was killed in the crash.

Ian Epstein, 53, and Danasia Brown, 34, were two of the flight attendants on board the American Airlines flight, according to their families.

A statement from the Epstein family said Mr Epstein “loved being a flight attendant because he truly enjoyed travelling and meeting new people”, adding that “his true love was his family”.

Ms Brown’s older brother Dajour set up a crowdfunding page to help support her husband and two children, aged four and 13.

“Anything donated will go towards her kids and husband that’s left behind,” he wrote.

Up to 14 members of US figure skating community

Several figure skating organisations have said that athletes were on the American Airlines jet.

One of those was 12-year-old Olivia Ter, who was described as “beloved” and an “exceptional youth figure skater”.

The Parks Department in Prince George’s County, Maryland, confirmed Olivia’s death on Thursday night.

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It said she was one of four elite skaters from the region attending a development camp in Wichita, Kansas.

“The impact of Olivia’s life will continue to resonate in our youth sports community, and she will be sorely missed,” a department director, Bill Tyler, said.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the Ter family, friends, teammates, and all those affected by this devastating loss.”

Meanwhile, The Skating Club of Boston also named members of its community who were on the American Airlines jet in a statement posted on Instagram.

They include athlete Jinna Han and her mother Jin Han, athlete Spencer Lane and his mother Christine Lane, and coaches Vadim Naumov and Yevgenia Shishkova, a married couple who won the world championships in pairs figure skating in 1994.

Reports of the couple being on board the jet were confirmed by the Kremlin.

As many as 14 American members of the community are feared dead, said Doug Zeghibe, Skating Club of Boston’s chief executive.

“To the best of our knowledge, 14 skaters returning home from the national development camp at Wichita, Kansas, put on by US figure skating, were lost in the plane crash at Washington DC,” he said.

“Of those 14 skaters, six were from the Skating Club of Boston. Two coaches and two teenage athletes, and two of the athletes’ mums.

“It’s a major loss for our skating community.”

US Figure Skating confirmed several members were on the American Airlines flight.

“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” it said in a statement.

“We will continue to monitor the situation and will release more information as it becomes available.”

A man who said his daughter’s best friend and her mother were on the jet when it crashed told Sky News they had been at an “athletic trip” in Kansas.

Russian world champions

According to US media, Shishkova, 52, and Naumov, 55, had lived in America since at least 1998, where they trained young ice skaters.

Their son, Maxim, 23, who had been competing in the US figure skating championships in Wichita, was also feared to be on the plane. But his friend and fellow skater Anton Spiridonov has reportedly said he left four days ago.

The couple were reported to have been returning from the competition and travelling with a group of young skaters.

Inna Volyanskaya, a former skater who competed for the Soviet Union, was also reported to have been on board, Russian state media said. She was a coach at the Washington figure skating club, according to its website.

“We regret and offer condolences to the families and friends who lost those of our fellow citizens who died in this plane crash,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Skaters confirm safety

US-Russian figure skater Spiridonov has confirmed he was not on the plane, despite reports suggesting he was.

Russian media had named him among the casualties, he said in an Instagram post.

“I was NOT on this flight, thank you for everyone’s concern for my safety,” the Winter World University Games silver medallist wrote.

“My heart goes out to all the families affected by this tragedy.”

Cristian McKnight-Ide, a professional skater, said in a Facebook post: “Thank you for those who have reached out regarding the flight from Wichita that crashed. Scarlet and I are home safe since early this afternoon.

“We are all praying for the safety of our fellow skaters that were on that flight.”

Anne Goldberg-Baldwin, also a skater, said she was “safe” as she asked her followers to pray for her loved ones in a story on Instagram.

Authorities have recovered 41 bodies after a plane crash in Washington DC.

Sixty-seven people were killed when an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter collided mid-air on Wednesday night. So far, 28 bodies have been identified.

Both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River after the collision. Some 300 personnel were sent to the scene, but the rescue soon turned into a recovery mission as officials said there were no survivors.

Washington crash: Follow the latest updates

Federal investigators have recovered the black boxes from the passenger jet, while authorities were still searching for similar devices in the helicopter.

Meanwhile, amid questions over how well the airport’s control tower was staffed on the night of the crash, it’s been confirmed that an air traffic control supervisor had let a controller leave their shift early.

The detail, first reported by the New York Times, has been confirmed to Sky News’ US partner NBC News by a source familiar with the investigation.

It means a single controller was handling both plane and helicopter traffic in the area when the two aircraft collided.

It is allowable – but not optimal – for one controller to do both jobs, NBC News reported.

The American Airlines jet was carrying 60 passengers and four crew when it crashed with the Black Hawk helicopter, carrying three soldiers, shortly before 9pm local time on Wednesday.

Flight 5342 was preparing to land on runway 33 at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when it collided with the helicopter in one of the most tightly controlled airspaces in the world.

‘Emergency vehicles sped past me’

A man whose wife was on the flight has recalled how he saw emergency services “speeding past” as he was waiting at the airport to pick her up.

Hamaad Raza told NBC News his wife of two years, Asra, had “texted me [and] said, ‘We’re landing in 20 minutes'”.

“I was waiting and I started seeing a bunch of EMS vehicles speeding past me… way too many, [more] than normal and my texts weren’t going through.”

Trump makes unproven diversity drive claim

Donald Trump has linked a diversity drive at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under previous governments to the crash.

It has since been said there is no evidence to support the US president’s claim.

Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Mr Trump suggested the diversity efforts had made air travel less safe.

At a White House press briefing on Friday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Mr Trump had signed a memorandum directing an immediate assessment of FAA hiring decisions made during the previous administration.

While Mr Trump’s claim appears to have been debunked, there are questions over staffing at Reagan Washington National Airport.

NBC News reported staffing in the air traffic control tower was “not normal”, according to an initial FAA report.

The tower normally has a controller who focuses specifically on helicopter traffic – but at the time of the crash, a source said, one controller was overseeing both plane and helicopter activity.

The FAA, which controls air traffic control as well as certification of personnel and aircraft, is without a permanent administrator. Its former boss Michael Whitaker stepped down on 20 January – the day of Mr Trump’s inauguration.

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Mr Trump has appointed an acting administrator, Chris Rocheleau, in the wake of the crash.

Mr Whitaker had clashed with Mr Trump’s confidante Elon Musk over the SpaceX rocket launches during his tenure at the FAA.

Since starting as head of the administration in October 2023, he was also forced to respond to Boeing’s safety and quality problems, and worked to hire more air traffic controllers due to a shortage of staff.

Read more:
Washington DC plane crash: What we know so far
Air traffic control heard diverting planes moments after collision

At his briefing, Mr Trump blamed former president Joe Biden for lowering standards for air traffic controllers.

“We have to have our smartest people,” he said. “They have to be naturally talented geniuses.”

Mr Trump added: “The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website.”

The American Association of People with Disabilities responded to these claims, saying in a statement on X: “FAA employees with disabilities did not cause [the] tragic plane crash.

“The investigation into the crash is still ongoing. It is extremely inappropriate for the president to use this tragedy to push an anti-diversity hiring agenda. Doing so makes all Americans less safe.”

Mr Trump said after being sworn in last week, he signed an executive order which “restored the highest standards of air traffic controllers”.

At a later briefing, he was asked if gender or race played a role. He answered: “It may have, I don’t know. Incompetence may have played a role.”

US transport secretary plans FAA overhaul

Transportation secretary Sean Duffy has said he is working on a plan to reform the FAA .

Alos, Mr Trump’s nominee to lead the US Army, Daniel Driscoll, said at a Senate confirmation hearing that training exercises near an airport like the Washington National Airport may not be appropriate.

Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the US since November 2001, when an American Airlines flight hit a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, just after take-off from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard.

The Pentagon and US army are investigating Wednesday’s collision, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said on X.

New audio reveals the helicopter pilot said he was able to see the American Airlines passenger plane, and twice requested permission to manoeuvre around it by sight and without further ground support.

The audio shows how the helicopter, using the code Priority Air Transport 25 (PAT-25), specifically asked for visual separation from the CRJ (Canadair Regional Jet) passenger plane.

That means the helicopter’s pilot requested permission to proceed, taking responsibility to look out for the plane and avoid it.

The request was in response to a question by air traffic control (ATC) asking whether they could see the passenger jet.

• ATC: “PAT-25, do you have the CRJ in sight? PAT-25, pass behind the CRJ.”
• PAT-25: “PAT25 has the traffic in sight [unintelligible], request visual separation.”
• ATC: “Confirmed.”

The helicopter made this same request again a short while later, after air traffic control again alerted them to the presence of the CRJ passenger jet.

• ATC: “PAT-25, there’s traffic just south of the Wilson Bridge, CRJ is at 1,200ft setting up for Runway 33.”
• PAT-25: “Requesting visual separation.”
• ATC: “Visual separation approved.”

It is not clear if the helicopter was responding to the wrong aircraft.

Another jet nearly hit a helicopter just 24 hours earlier

The mixing of helicopters and passenger jets around the airport had also led to confusion just 24 hours earlier.

On the evening of 28 January, a different American Airlines jet, flight 4514, had to take evasive action to avoid a helicopter near the airport.

The plane landed safely on its second attempt.

The suspected helicopter was next spotted 40 seconds later at an altitude of 1,600ft, having veered off in the opposite direction to the plane.

Staffing was ‘not normal’

As part of its investigation into Wednesday’s crash, the US National Transportation Safety Board is looking into various areas, including staffing at the airport’s air traffic control tower.

Sky’s US partner network NBC revealed that an air traffic controller left work early on the day of the crash. That allegedly left just one person to monitor both airplane and helicopter traffic.

Air traffic controllers are only allowed to operate alone after 9.30pm. The accident took place at 8.47pm.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) preliminary report into the crash said staffing at Reagan Washington National Airport was “not normal” in advance of the accident.

Across the US, FAA data does show a decline in the number of air traffic controllers over the years.

The context, however, is an even larger decline in air traffic – meaning there arguably isn’t a need for as many air traffic controllers as in the past.

It also remains unclear whether air traffic control staffing levels affect passenger safety. Fatal air accidents are, thankfully, rare – but that means it’s hard to spot patterns in the data.

A more common occurrence is runway incursions – where a plane, in the grounds of the airport, goes where it isn’t supposed to be.

The vast majority of runway incursions have no safety consequences at all, but it’s a useful proxy to measure the number of mistakes on the ground.

The chart below shows the number of runway incursions per million flights has actually been falling, and last year was the lowest it’s been since the pandemic.

A board member of the National Transportation Safety Board said that staffing is likely to be only one small part of the investigation.

Investigators may also be examining the altitude of the helicopter involved in the crash.

Maps published by the FAA show that helicopters are required to stay below 200ft in the area around the airport, but flight tracking data suggests the helicopter may have been flying at 300ft in the moments before the crash.

“With military traffic, quite a lot of the time they can negotiate these restrictions,” says Marco Chan, a senior lecturer in aviation operations at Buckinghamshire New University and an experienced pilot.

“If air traffic controllers know what’s going on with traffic in the vicinity, they can allow them to go beyond the minimum or maximum altitude.”

Investigators will need to determine if the data is accurate, and whether the helicopter had received prior authorisation to breach the altitude limit.

The videos of the collision are strikingly, shockingly clear.

The reasons are, so far, not.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.