UPDATED! 'US Plane Crash' 18 Bodies Recovered from Washington River

A passenger jet carrying 64 people crashed into Washington’s Potomac River on Wednesday after colliding midair with a military helicopter. US media reports that multiple bodies were pulled from the dark, near-freezing waters.

A massive search and rescue operation was underway, with divers visible in the glare of powerful lights as they plunged into the snow-lined Potomac to search through the wreckage of both aircraft.

Washington Fire Chief John Donnelly told a press briefing that emergency crews, totaling about 300 people, were working in “extremely rough” conditions and gave little indication they expected to find anyone alive.

“We’re going to be out there as long as it takes,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters.

Citing local sources, CBS News reported at least 18 bodies had been recovered, while NBC reported more than a dozen.

US Figure Skating confirmed that several athletes, coaches, and officials were aboard the flight. Officials in Moscow confirmed that married Russian couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov—who won the 1994 world pairs title—were on the jet. “We unfortunately see that these sad reports are being confirmed. Our other fellow citizens were there,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The Bombardier plane, operated by an American Airlines subsidiary, was approaching Reagan National Airport at around 9:00 pm (0200 GMT) after flying from Wichita, Kansas, when the collision occurred.

US Army officials said the helicopter involved was a Black Hawk carrying three soldiers on a “training flight.”

Witness Ari Schulman was driving home when he saw what he described as “a stream of sparks” overhead.

“Initially, I saw the plane, and it looked fine, normal. It was right about to head over land,” he told CNN. “Three seconds later, and at that point, it was banked all the way to the right… I could see the underside of it, it was lit up a very bright yellow, and there was a stream of sparks underneath it,” Schulman added. “It looked like a Roman candle.”

President Donald Trump issued an official statement, saying he had been “fully briefed” and expressed his condolences for the victims. He also criticized air traffic control, writing on his Truth Social platform: “The aeroplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the aeroplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing. Why didn’t the helicopter go up or down or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane? This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all planes at Reagan National, with the airport not expected to reopen until 11:00 am (1600 GMT) Thursday.

American Airlines’ chief executive issued a video statement expressing “deep sorrow,” while US Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas called the collision “nothing short of a nightmare.”

It remains unclear how a passenger plane with modern collision-avoidance technology and nearby traffic controllers could collide with a military aircraft over the nation’s capital. The airspace around Washington is often crowded, with planes coming in low over the city to land at Reagan Airport and helicopters—military, civilian, and carrying senior politicians or officials—buzzing about both day and night.

The same airport was the scene of a deadly crash in January 1982 when Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737, took off but quickly plummeted, hitting the 14th Street bridge and crashing through the ice into the Potomac River. Seventy-eight people died. Investigators later concluded the pilot had failed to activate sufficient de-icing procedures.

The last major fatal US air accident was in 2009, when Continental Flight 3407 from New Jersey to Buffalo, New York, crashed, killing all 49 people aboard.