“We are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” Washington Fire Chief John Donnelly said. Twenty-eight bodies had already been found.
The collision – the first major crash in the United States since 2009 when 49 people were killed near Buffalo, New York – occurred late evening on Wednesday as the airliner came into land at Reagan National Airport after a routine flight from Wichita, Kansas.
Reagan National is a major airport located only a short distance from downtown Washington, the Pentagon and other major sites in the capital. The airspace is extremely busy, with civilian and military aircraft a constant presence.
Dramatic audio from air traffic controllers showed them repeatedly asking the helicopter if it had the passenger jet “in sight,” and then just before the crash telling it to “pass behind” the plane.
