Chilling air traffic control audio captures moment American Airlines flight collides with helicopter
30 January 2025, 12:36
Chilling air traffic control audio has captured the moment an American Airlines flight collided with a helicopter.
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In-flight recordings captured the final communications between the three crew members of the helicopter, which had the call sign PAT25.
"PAT25, do you have a CRJ in sight? PAT25, pass behind the CRJ," an air traffic controller said at 8.47pm local time on Wednesday.
Moments later another aircraft appeared to reference the crash, saying: "Tower, did you see that?"
An air traffic controller then redirected planes heading to runway 33 at Reagan Washington National Airport.
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"Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three," one of the air traffic controllers could be heard saying.
"I don't know if you caught earlier what happened, but there was a collision on the approach into 33. We're going to be shutting down operations for the indefinite future," another controller said.
A third controller added: "Both the helicopter and the plane crashed in the river."
"It was probably out in the middle of the river," the controller said. "I just saw a fireball and then it was just gone. I haven't seen anything since they hit the river. But it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit."
The crash was caught on a webcam at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
Footage showed the plane exploding in flames as it plummeted into the river.
No senior military officials were on the helicopter but US Figure Skating has confirmed that several skaters were on the flight.
