Military helicopter crashes similar to the one that occurred and caused a commercial American Airlines flight to crash into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday night are highly uncommon. However, military statistics and an aviation expert have noted an increase in such incidents in recent years.
The AA Flight 5342 from Wichita to Reagan National Airport (DCA) had a total of 64 individuals on board, including passengers and flight crew members. Three soldiers were engaged in a training exercise on the Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that originated from Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
“The frequency of these incidents is definitely a cause for concern,” stated Timothy Loranger, an aviation attorney at Wisner Baum and a former Marine Corps member, in an interview with Fox News Digital. “Nevertheless, when you consider the vast number of flight hours that take place without any problems, it is quite reassuring.”
The collision has sparked questions about how such a devastating accident could happen in one of the most tightly controlled airspaces in the country and the world. The last significant fatal commercial crash happened in 2009, when a Continental Airlines flight crashed into a house in Buffalo, New York, killing 49 people.
The controller who was handling helicopters Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from the airport runways, the Times reported. Those assignments are typically assigned to two controllers.
A plane flies near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, in the aftermath of the collision of American Eagle Flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, on Jan. 30, 2025. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
“I don’t know exactly how the staffing occurred in that particular air traffic control tower,” Hegseth told “Fox & Friends.” “It sounds like there was a shortage [of controllers], and the investigation will tell us more about that. But the environment around which we choose pilots or air traffic controllers, as the president pointed out correctly yesterday, better be the highest possible standard — the best of the best who are managing … a flight a minute and managing radio traffic.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the FAA.
The air control tower at Reagan Airport has been understaffed for years with 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023. The FFA and controllers’ union, however, called for 30 controllers in its staffing targets.
Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, Liz Friden and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
