Washington DC plane crash: Authorities recover 41 bodies after mid-air collision
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
Personnel recovering debris from the river. Pic: Reuters
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.
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Air traffic controller left early
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 with his wife Asra. Pic: Raza Family
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.”
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Mr Trump blames plane crash on diversity hiring
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.
One of the black boxes being inspected at a lab. Pic: National Transportation Safety Board
Emergency personnel at the site of the crash. Pic: Reuters
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
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CCTV captures moment of mid-air 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.”
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Audio captured moments after the crash
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.”
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‘We look at the human, the machine, the environment’
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.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Read more:
What is the possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal?
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
British surgeons on life in Gaza
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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