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American Eagle Flight 5342 Midair Collision with U.S. Army
Black Hawk Helicopter
Shortly before 9:00 PM on January 29, 2025, a Bombardier CRJ
700 jet operated by PSA Airlines as American Eagle Flight
5342 that had been cleared by Air Traffic Control (ATC) to
land at Reagan National Airport (DCA) was involved in a
tragic midair collision with a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60
Black Hawk helicopter conducting a training flight. All 60
passengers and 4 flight crew members on board 5342 were
killed, as well as the 3 crew members on the helicopter when
the wreckage plummeted into the Potomac River.
According to ATC recordings, Flight 5342 was initially given
instructions by ATC to land on Runway 1 at DCA before the
controller directed them to circle and cleared them to land
on Runway 33. The Black Hawk was in communication with the
same controller as it transited the low level helicopter
corridor over the Potomac River. Seeing both aircraft in
close proximity, the controller communicated to the pilot of
the helicopter to fly behind 5342 who acknowledged the
instruction. It appears that no safety alert was given by
the controller.
A joint investigation is being conducted by the National
Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Department of
Defense. The NTSB is a non-partisan, independent agency of
the federal government responsible for investigations of
transportation accidents to determine the probable cause of
the collision and to make safety recommendations to the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) so as to prevent
future accidents. While this investigation remains in its
very early stages, some areas of focus will be the precise
location and altitude of each aircraft at the time of the
collision, the instructions provided by the controller to
each aircraft, staffing inside the ATC tower at DCA, and the
safety of shared flight space at DCA.
More areas of focus are likely to come up over the next
several months that will be closely monitored by the
Baumeister & Samuels team. There are very strict
requirements for suing the federal government under the
Federal Tort Claims Act, and we have decades of experience
litigating with the federal government who are responsible
for the air traffic control system in this country and the
operation of the nation’s armed forces.
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