Terrible plane crash a Washington: at 2:48 Italians of this night (20:48 rooms) a plane line CRJ-700 of the American Airlines (flight AA5342) coming from Wichitain Kansas, collided in flight with a military helicopter H60 Black Hawk Roomed in Fort Belvair in Virginia who was carrying out a training flight near the Reagan National Airport of Washington, a few kilometers from the White House. The Jet CRJ-700, which was at a quota of about 100 meters and had a speed of approximately 200 km/hhad on board 60 passengers (two Russian skating champions, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov) e 4 crew members And he should have landed a few minutes from there, while the helicopter traveled to about 130 km/h and he had on board 3 soldiers.
At the moment the bodies of at least 19 victims And they are looking for any survivors (activities that may take several days). On Possible causes At the moment there are still no hypotheses of the accident: we therefore wait for the investigations to shed light on the tragedy. For the moment the FBI has excluded the hypothesis of terrorist attack. Farnesina said that in case of need, the Italian Embassy can be contacted in Washington (+1 2022573753) or the crisis unit of the Farnesina (+39 06 36225).
After the clash, both aircraft fell into the Potomac river And the recovery operations immediately began. The commander of the Fire Brigade of the District of Columbia said that it is certainly not surviving us. Following the air disaster, he was found upside down in the river, while the Jet Crj-700 shattered in at least two sections. The low altitude crash produced a bright glow Note from the control tower, also captured by some closed circuit cameras installed in the area.
According to the audio recordings of the Control Tower, the flight controller would have asked the crew of the helicopter if he had seen the CRJ-700 plane and ordered to dispose of the scheduled plane, but after a few seconds of non-response it is the crash took place. At the time of the disaster, the visibility was good (about 10 statutory miles, or 16 km), as well as the weather conditionsand the winds blowing to about 28 km/h with gusts up to 46 km/h.
According to a declaration of Jeff Guzzettiformer investigator of Federal Aviation Administration aerial accidents, there is a north-south trajectory along the Potomac river in which helicopters can fly at low altitude. The Black Hawk of the accident could therefore have found itself on the allowed route.
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