'Spray of sparks': Witness describes midair collision over Potomac River
While driving home Wednesday night on the George Washington Parkway near Ronald Reagan National Airport, Ari Shulman said a "spray of sparks" in the sky caught his attention as he watched in horror the midair collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter unfold.
Authorities said Thursday that the crash shattered the regional commuter airplane into pieces as it and the military helicopter plummeted into the icy Potomac River, killing everyone aboard both aircraft -- 67 victims combined.
"I looked back and [the plane] was banked all the way to the right … it was illuminated yellow underneath and there was a spray of sparks on the underside," Schulman told ABC News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts.
Security video released shortly after the crash confirmed Shulman's description of the first major U.S. air disaster in nearly 16 years.
Video footage showed Flight 5342 with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard making its final approach to Reagan National when it was struck by a Black Hawk helicopter traveling south with a flight crew of three.
"I knew something was very wrong because it was very, very close to the ground -- banked all the way to the right," Shulman of Alexandria, Virginia, said.
He said he glanced at the road for just a moment.
"I looked back again and it was gone," Shulman said. "I didn't see any crash into the ground. I didn't see a fireball, an explosion, or flames."
Fire Chief John Donnelly of the Washington D.C. Fire Department said at a news conference Thursday morning that an American Airlines plane, operated by its subsidiary PSA Airlines, was found "inverted" in three pieces in waist-high water of the Potomac. He said the helicopter was discovered nearby.
"At this point, we don't believe there are any survivors from this accident," Donnelly said.
Donnelly said the search-and-rescue mission was not a search-and-recovery operation. He said 27 bodies had been recovered from the airplane and one from the helicopter.
Donnelly said that at 8:48 p.m. local time, the control tower at Reagan National sent out an alert of a plane crash.
"Very quickly, the call escalated," Donnelly said.
He said 300 first responders raced to the river in a desperate attempt to find survivors, which would prove futile. Within 10 minutes, the first emergency unit arrived on the grisly scene, surveying the wreckage of both aircraft in the Potomac River.
"The water that we're operating in is about 8 feet deep," Donnelly told reporters at the somber early-morning briefing. "There is wind … pieces of ice out there, so it's just dangerous and hard to work in. And because there's not a lot of lights, you're out there searching every square inch of space to see if you can find anybody."
He added, "Divers are doing the same thing in the water. The water is dark, it is murky, and that is a very tough condition for them to dive in."
Meanwhile, the medical staffs of three major Washington, D.C., hospitals said they were prepared to treat victims, but as the minutes turned into hours, no ambulances arrived from the crash site with patients.
From the banks of the Potomac, search helicopters were seen probing the water with searchlights as fire boats made trips back and forth through the icy Potomac, transporting what appeared to be debris from the crash, including suitcases.
Inside, the usually bustling airport was eerily quiet Wednesday evening. The departure and arrivals boards were nearly blank.
Jack Potter, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, said some family members were waiting to pick up loved ones before the crash, and American Airlines had set up a center in the airline's lounge for family members.
