Facts are still coming in and the investigations are heating up after Wednesday night’s crash between a passenger plane and a military helicopter in the skies above Washington, D.C., a tragedy that is presumed to have killed all 64 airplane passengers and three service members aboard the chopper.
Speculation has been flying in from all areas about what could have led to a disaster, but one new revelation is sure to cause even more debate: a very similar episode occurred just the night before. Luckily, however, in that instance, tragedy was averted:
A passenger flight had to abort landing at Reagan National Airport in Washington DC the day before American Airlines Flight 5342 collided in midair with a helicopter.
Republic Airways Flight 4514 was forced to back out of touching down and had to make a second approach after a helicopter appeared near its flight path.
That’s according to an audio recording from air traffic control captured on Tuesday and heard by The Washington Post.
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The near-miss was almost identical to what happened on Wednesday:
Flightradar data for the flight shows the plane had been travelling from Windsor Locks in Connecticut to the city and had to dramatically gain altitude shortly after descending on Reagan National Airport. It eventually landed safely.
The incident is eerily similar to the events of Wednesday night, when an American Airlines plane smashed into a US Army Black Hawk helicopter as it came into land at the airport.
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 river.
Dozens of bodies have so far been pulled out of the Potomac River in the aftermath of American Eagle Flight 5342, and investigators say they’ve recovered the two black boxes. In addition, it has come to light that there were some staffing irregularities at the Reagan National Airport control tower, as our Becca Lower reported:
Some concerning information is now emerging about the air traffic control staffing situation at the airport involved in Wednesday evening’s tragic collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a commercial airliner, after a review of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) internal, preliminary report on the incident near D.C.’s Reagan National Airport.
Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.
The controller who was handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers, rather than one.
RedState will keep you updated as new information comes in regarding this terrible accident—and what led up to it. The thought that it almost happened the night before to a different flight is very scary indeed.
Update 1/30 9:40 p.m: Adding this tweet that purports to show flight 4514 on radar aborting the landing:
🚨 #BREAKING: Just 24 HOURS before an American Airlines flight collided with a Blackhawk at Reagan National Airport, ANOTHER American flight had to abort landing due to a helicopter crossing its flight path at the same airport
AA4514 can be seen on radar having to go around a… pic.twitter.com/kecSr9V8WP
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 31, 2025
