This is the moment that Fox News anchor Sean Hannity read a congressman’s ‘off the record’ text revealing details about the vast scope of the tragic American Airlines plane and US Army helicopter crash Wednesday night.Â
Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, with 60 passengers and four crew members, collided with a Blackhawk helicopter carrying three people near Reagan National Airport just before 9pm on January 29.
As of now, rescuers have recovered 28 bodies from the jet and one from the helicopter, as stated by Washington DC Fire and EMS Chief John A. Donnelly.Â
While the search for passengers continues, an unidentified Congressman has reportedly told Hannity in a series of ‘off the record’ texts that nearly all travelers are dead.Â
‘I’ll keep it off the record but a well-known Congressman just wrote me and said off the record.
‘This Congressman is telling me and confirming what Kevin Cork said that this Congressman is being told that there are 60 plus dead.’Â
Hannity did not clarify whether the number included all travelers aboard the jet and helicopter or just flyers on the plane.Â
Some of those who are believed to be dead include members of the US figure skating team who were returning from the US Figure Skating Championships.Â
The aircraft collided in a huge fireball that was visible on dashcams of cars driving on highways that snake past the airport and crashed into the Potomac River.
The helicopter was flying a training mission and cut through the airspace from the opposite direction under cover of darkness – with both aircrafts seemingly unaware of the other’s presence.
Over 300 first responders and rescue workers were deployed to the Potomac on inflatable boats while others erected searchlights to illuminate the murky waters in a desperate hunt for survivors.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy agreed with President Donald Trump that the crash was preventable, while American Airlines appeared to point the finger at the helicopter pilot.
‘It was, I would say, standard communication, so there was not a breakdown, if that’s your question, in communication between the military helicopter and the American airline flight. There was communication between the aircraft and the tower,’ he said.
‘I would say that the helicopter was aware that the plane was in the area.
‘We are going to wait for all the information to come in from this vantage point, but… what I’ve seen so far, do I think this was preventable? Absolutely.’
Duffy said both the military helicopter and the airliner were flying a ‘standard fight pattern’ like hundreds of flights before.
‘This was a clear night last night; the helicopter was in the standard pattern. If you live in the DC area, you will see helicopters up and down the river,’ he said.
‘The American Airline flight coming in to land was in a standard flight pattern as it was coming into DCA, so this was not unusual with a military aircraft flying the river and aircraft landing at DCA.’
Duffy further told media that fuselage from the doomed American Airlines plane was found in the Potomac river in three different areas following the mid-air collision with a US Army helicopter.
He said the wreckage is in ‘about waist-deep water’ with recovery work taking place today.
American Airlines chief executive Robert Isom added that the pilots of Flight 5342 were experienced.
‘I know that the captain had… almost six years with PSA [Airlines], and the first officer almost two years,’ he said.
PSA Airlines is a regional subsidiary of AA that flies small planes on lesser-used routes.
Furthermore, Duffy added that just because the military helicopter was on a training mission, didn’t mean the pilots were learning to fly.
‘We call these missions that are flown in the DC area as our pilots are getting hours and experience training missions,’ he said.
‘So don’t read into that how many hours the pilots on the military aircraft had.’
Officials are yet to clarify why the crash occurred and how neither of the aircrafts were aware of each other’s presence. Â
