What caused the DC plane crash? What we know and what we don’t know | FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul

What caused the DC plane crash? What we know and what we don’t know

Investigators are working to figure out what might have caused the deadly plane crash in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday evening. 

So far, the official cause of the crash between an American Airlines passenger jet and a military helicopter has not been released by investigators. 

RELATED: LIVE DC plane crash updates: Midair collision leaves no survivors 

Crew retrieve wreckage of American Airlines flight 5342 in the Potomac River, Washington, DC, January 30, 2025. The plane was involved in a fatal collision with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter last night. (Leigh Green for Fox News Digital)

Here is what we know so far: 

Investigators on the ground 

During a press conference on Thursday, officials said that during their first "full day" at the scene of the crash, they would "not be determining probable cause of the accident" and that they would not be speculating "about what may have caused this accident." 

"Today, we will be going and having an organizational meeting and establishing parties to our investigation," Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said. 

What caused the crash? 

What we know:


On Wednesday evening at about 9 p.m. ET, American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound to Ronald Reagan National Airport at about 400 feet and a speed of about 140 mph when the plane rapidly lost altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from its radio transponder. 

A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National, and the pilots said they were able. 

Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. Flight-tracking sites showed the plane adjusting its approach to the new runway. 

Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the Black Hawk if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: "PAT 25, pass behind the CRJ." Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided. 

The plane’s transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet (732 meters) short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.

What we don't know:

Whether it was human error or a mechanical error that caused the deadly crash is yet to be determined. 

On Thursday evening, Peter Knudson, a NTSB spokesperson, confirmed crews recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the passenger airplane. 

What they're saying:

"The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation," Knudson added. 

The FAA also sent "a very large package of information" early Thursday morning that is being reviewed and analyzed. Officials have asked the public to give them time to review the data and information they have been provided before speculating the cause. 

Trump blasts DEI policies

President Donald Trump said – admittedly without evidence – that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are to blame for the horrific crash. 

Trump, speaking at a news conference Thursday, began by expressing his condolences to the people who lost their lives, but quickly transitioned to a more combative tone and bashed the Biden administration’s diversity efforts at the FAA. 

Trump said Buttigieg concluded that the FAA’s workforce was "too white," and that his diversity efforts "run it right into the ground," even using profanity at one point to describe the former transportation secretary. 

"We have a high standard," Trump said when asked how the crash was caused by diversity hiring. "We've had a much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brainpower. You have to go by psychological quality and psychology. Quality is a very important element of it. These are various very powerful tests that we put to use," Trump continued. 

"And they were terminated by Biden. And Biden went by a standard that's the exact opposite. So we don't know. But we do know that you had two planes at the same level. You had a helicopter and a plane that shouldn't have happened. And we'll see. We're going to look into that and we're going to see. But, certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that's psychologically superior, and that's what we're going to have."

RELATED: Staffing ‘not normal’ in air traffic control tower during DC plane crash: reports

Former Black Hawk pilot weighs in

Retired Lt. Col. Darin Gaub spoke with "FOX & Friends" on Thursday to discuss what he believes may have been the cause. 

What they're saying:


"There’s an air corridor going down the Potomac River that defines exactly where they’re supposed to fly by altitude and by left and right limits. If they went too high, that’s a possibility that they could have run into an aircraft that way," Gaub suggested, but stressed that was a hypothetical. "That’s one of the scenarios I can see explaining what happened." 

No black box

Gaub also claimed that Black Hawk helicopters like the one involved in the crash don’t typically have the cockpit voice recorders or black boxes. 

"This is going to have to rely on external sources and witnesses to piece together," Gaub said. 

The backstory:


"This model of aircraft is quite a bit older and to put something like that in, it would have had to have been part of the initial package. That didn’t really exist when they started making these," Gaub said. "It’s a risk calculation too, for what you install for the space you have."

Gaub also noted that putting collision avoidance and warning systems in a Black Hawk wouldn’t make much sense due to their purpose.

"Most of the time when Black Hawks fly, when I ran an assault battalion, you put 10 aircraft in formation, flying close together, close to the ground, you have a collision avoidance system, it’s going to be constantly going off because you’re always close to something," Gaub added.    

3 aboard Black Hawk 

The former pilot also noted that there are usually four crew members inside a Black Hawk to help navigate the aircraft safely while on an official mission. There were only three on board on the night of the crash, but Gaub said this is normal for training purposes.  

What they're saying:


"There are normally two crew chiefs in the back, both looking sideways at 90 degrees off from the front two pilots and each one of them is a set of eyes that can a see whole lot more, in some cases, than the pilots can," Gaub said.

‘You send your best’

It was confirmed by officials that the three soldiers aboard the Black Hawk were highly trained and Gaub speculated that the entire accident could have just been due to a freak accident. 

What they're saying:


"That’s certainly a possibility," Gaub said. "You leave flight school, you know quite a bit. You gain experience and you realize just how much you don’t know. But, I’ve sent many pilots from my command to the Fort Belvoir flight detachments, supporting the Washington, D.C.-area and you send your best because of what it takes to thrive there." 

"On final approach into Reagan National, it collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach," American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said. 

A top Army aviation official said the Black Hawk crew was "very experienced" and familiar with the congested flying that occurs daily around Washington. 

"Both pilots had flown this specific route before, at night. This wasn’t something new to either one of them," said Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation. "Even the crew chief in the back has been in the unit for a very long time, very familiar with the area, very familiar with the routing structure."

Too much light

Gaub said that while there was plenty of light to show pilots where they are in the sky, sometimes too much light can actually be a hindrance. 

"When you fly in an environment that is so lit up with city lights, and you also then blend in aircraft lights, and many aircraft flying, it can actually all blend together," Gaub said. "And at certain altitudes, you actually can have a difficult time differentiating between an aircraft with its lights on and cars on the streets and streetlights." 

"I’ve had that happen to me in Korea where I had a near-miss from a 747 because you couldn’t see it. It was just lights, moving and we thought they were cars on the streets," Gaub said. 

The Source: Information for this article was gathered from The Associated Press, a FOX News interview conducted on Jan. 30, 2025, a news conference that took place on Jan. 30, 2025, and FOX 5 DC. This story was reported from Los Angeles. 

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