It was just a normal weeknight at Reagan National Airport (DCA) for LaVar Swann when he heard a loud noise that made him temporarily pause. However, it would take a few moments before Swann, a greeter at DCA, began piecing together something devastating had happened.
“It was loud as hell,” Swann said, recalling the noise that he would later learn was the tragic collision of an American Airlines jet carrying 64 passengers and a Black Hawk helicopter with at least three military personnel, killing all aboard.
“It happened when I was waiting on a client, and the client’s plane got diverted to Dulles last night and it was tons of police here [at the airport], a lot of ambulances and everything, just flying through the terminal to get to the crash site,” he told The Informer.
Despite the chaos, Swann didn’t really know what was happening. It took a call from a colleague who is a driver to explain some of the scene that was unfolding.
“People on the inside really didn’t know what was going on. It was people on the outside that knew what really was going on,’” Swann said, before adding he never really got the full information that night. “And I didn’t know that it hit another helicopter. I just knew the plane. It was wild.”
Since the crash at about 9 p.m. Wednesday night, the nation is learning of the midair collision that killed 67 people as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigates what contributed to this tragedy in hopes of preventing anything like this again.
“Our thoughts, our prayers are with you. Entire communities were affected and we are thinking of you,” said Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of NTSB, an independent federal agency charged by Congress with investigating civil aviation accidents and other serious transportation events. “The NTSB’s headquarters are just a mile from here and so we are all here because this is an all-hands-on-deck event. And we’re here to assure the American people that we are going to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. We are going to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy, looking at the facts.”
The Nation’s Capital and Wichita Come Together
Leaders nationwide worked to unite Americans following the devastating midair collision over the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport.
“We mourn with all those who have been impacted,” said Wichita, Kansas, Mayor Lily Lu, after a Black Hawk helicopter with at least three military personnel collided with an American Airlines jet carrying 64 passengers, killing all aboard.
The American Airlines flight was coming from Wichita to the nation’s capital.
“This is a terrible tragedy that will unite those in Washington, D.C., and Wichita, Kansas, forever,” Lu added.
As she sent condolences to the victims and families, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser expressed deep gratitude for those working tirelessly to assist in searching people and answers.
“Our hearts and our prayers go out to all of the families and loved ones impacted by this horrific collision,” said Bowser, who has been working collaboratively with local elected officials, D.C. Fire and EMS, Reagan National Airport and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). “I am very proud of our first responders in D.C. and in the entire region who continue recovery efforts. We’re going to support them every step of the way.”
Trump Blames DEI for Crash
The day after the devastating incident, President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held briefings that included racist and partisan attacks.
Trump and his officials used the tragedy to attack Democrats and falsely blame former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Obama, who left office in 2017, was dragged into the conversation, while Trump and his allies claimed the crash resulted from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies— initiatives that have been in place in the federal government since at least the 1960s after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.
Even as mainstream media figures like Bakari Sellers urged against assigning blame so soon after the crash, Trump pushed his political agenda.
“We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system. I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary,” Trump claimed, without citing any policy changes or evidence. “And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first, Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put policy first. Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse.”
Trump then took aim at what he called an “FAA diversity push,” spewing falsehoods about hiring standards.
“They’re including people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities—it’s amazing,” he said.
From there, the president turned his attacks to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
“Do you know how badly everything’s run since he’s run the Department of Transportation,” Trump asked. “He’s a disaster. He was a disaster as a mayor. He ran his city into the ground, and he’s a disaster. Now he’s just got a good line of bulls—.”
Vance, Duffy, and Hegseth echoed Trump’s attacks, claiming that only the “best and brightest” should be hired in air traffic control and government agencies.
“If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the color of their skin,” Vance asserted, offering no proof.
Hegseth piled on, declaring that “the era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department.”
“The best leaders possible—whether it’s flying Black Hawks, flying airplanes, leading platoons, or in government—will be chosen based on merit,” Hegseth said.
Duffy blamed the crash on government hiring practices without offering any evidence.
“We are going to take responsibility at the Department of Transportation and the FAA to make sure we have the reforms that have been dictated by President Trump in place to make sure that these mistakes do not happen again and again,” he said.
As Trump and Republican allies emphasized policy changes and pointed to DEI as the culprit behind the tragedy, Democrats urged patience while investigators worked to determine the cause of the crash.
“It never does any good to speculate on the causes of aviation accidents before we have the facts and the details,” Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) said. “It is important to let the NTSB complete its work before we consider any potential policy response.”
“My heart goes out to the families of the victims on both aircraft following last night’s awful tragedy,” Larsen added.
Remembering the Fallen
Among those killed were 14 skaters returning home from a national development camp in Wichita, Kansas, including six members of the Skating Club of Boston—two teenage athletes, their mothers, and two coaches.
Doug Zeghibe, CEO of the Skating Club of Boston, fought back tears as he spoke to NBC Boston.
“Skating is a very close and tight-knit community. I think for all of us, we have lost family,” he said.
He called the two coaches, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, “top coaches,”noting that they were the 1994 world pair champions.
“This wasn’t the first plane tragedy for the club,” Zeghibe said, recalling the 1961 crash that killed the entire U.S. figure skating world team en route to the world championships in Prague. “It had long-reaching implications for this skating club and for the sport in this country because when you lose coaches like this, you lose the future of the sport as well.”
Faith in Flying After the Midair Collision
While Wednesday night’s event has some people worried about flying, officials have said it is safe to fly and DCA airport opened Thursday at 11 a.m.
Hope Murray, a Maryland native living in Virginia, was one of the first planes to land at National after the tragic accident.
While she was a bit nervous to fly, she put faith over fear.
“I feel like I have the protection of God, and everybody has their journey,” Murray told The Informer in the American Airlines baggage claim area at Reagan National.
She also hoped for heightened safety procedures post the incident.
“I hate to say it, but typically there’s more vigilance after an incident like this occurs so you have a little bit more feelings of safety,” she said.
Murray told The Informer she is confident leaders are working to prevent an event like the Jan. 29 collision to happen again.
“I have faith that the government is doing everything they can, at this point, so we’ll see,” Murray said. “If there are additional protocols that need to be had, they will do that.”