A regional jet carrying 64 people and a military helicopter have collided midair near Washington, DC, the United States, raising fears of mass casualties and forcing a halt to all takeoffs and landings at Ronald Reagan Washington national airport. US President Donald Trump said late on Wednesday he had been briefed on the \u201cterrible accident\u201d. \u201cMay God bless their souls. Thank you for the incredible work being done by our first responders,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cI am monitoring the situation and will provide more details as they arise.\u201d The PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 jet collided with a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter at around 9pm local time (02:00 GMT, Thursday) while en route from Wichita, Kansas, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said. \u201cPSA was operating as Flight 5342 for American Airlines. It departed from Wichita, Kansas,\u201d the FAA said in a statement. \u201cThe FAA and NTSB will investigate. The NTSB will lead the investigation,\u201d the aviation agency added, referring to the National Transportation Safety Board. The FAA said the airport would be closed until at least 5am on Friday. American Airlines confirmed there were 60 passengers and four crew members on board the aircraft. The US army confirmed that its helicopter was carrying three personnel. Police and fire services said a multi-agency search and rescue operation was under way in the Potomac River. \u201cFireboats on scene,\u201d the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department said in a post on X. Video posted on social media appeared to show the two aircraft collide and explode into flames. There was no immediate confirmation of the number of casualties. Texas Senator Ted Cruz said \u201cwe know there are fatalities\u201d, without elaborating on the number or the source of his information. If the fatalities are confirmed, the crash would be the first deadly incident involving a US commercial airline since 2009, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed in Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 people on board. US Senator Roger Marshall, who represents Kansas, said the disaster was \u201cnothing short of a nightmare\u201d. \u201cMy prayer is that God wraps his arms around each and every victim and that he continues to be with their families. There are no words that can make telling this story any easier,\u201d Marshall said on X. \u201cI ask the world to join me in praying for Kansas this evening, the first responders, rescue crews, and all those involved in this horrific accident.\u201d Ronald Reagan Washington national airport, located in Arlington, Virginia, is the closest airport to Washington, DC, lying less than five miles from the US capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A regional jet carrying 64 people and a military helicopter have collided midair near Washington, DC, the United States, raising fears of mass casualties and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22581,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}