2025 Potomac River mid-air collision

On January 29, 2025, a Bombardier CRJ700 airliner operating as American Airlines Flight 5342 (operated by PSA Airlines as American Eagle) and a United States Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter operating as Priority Air Transport 25 collided in mid-air over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. The collision occurred at 8:47 p.m. at an altitude of about 300 feet (100 m) and about one-half mile (800 m) short of the threshold of runway 33 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. All 67 people aboard both aircraft were killed in the crash, including 64 passengers and crew on the airliner and the three crew of the helicopter. It was the first major US commercial passenger flight crash since Colgan Air Flight 3407 in 2009, and the deadliest US air disaster since the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in 2001. This was also the third hull loss and first fatal accident involving the CRJ700 series.

The jet was on final approach into Reagan National Airport after flying a scheduled route from Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita, Kansas, to D.C., while the helicopter crew was performing a required annual flying evaluation with night vision goggles and had left from Davison Army Airfield in Fairfax County, Virginia. Both aircraft communicated with air traffic control before they collided. The helicopter crew reported twice that they had visual contact with the airliner and would maintain separation from it, although it is unknown whether they were monitoring the correct aircraft. The crew of the Black Hawk may not have heard parts of the tower communication due to a mic press.

On March 11, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released a preliminary report along urgent safety recommendations, highlighting the dangerously narrow vertical separation between the runway approach path and the helicopter route. The NTSB chair also expressed anger that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not act on data showing the number of near-miss alerts over the previous decade.

The final report, released on February 17, 2026, concluded that the probable causes of the crash included the FAA's placement of the helicopter route, failures in the agency's oversight, and an overreliance on visual separation. Also causal was helicopter pilot error, loss of situational awareness by air traffic control due to high workload, and the United States Army's failure to ensure pilot understanding of altimeter error tolerances.