Photo: Alamy
Just a handful of hours after being sworn in by Vice President J.D. Vance, President Trump’s newly sworn-in Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was thrust into dealing with one of the deadliest air collision incidents in American history.
On Wednesday night, an American Airlines jet carrying over 60 people collided with a Black Hawk helicopter near the Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., resulting in what is likely a mass-casualty event.
According to CBS, there were also three soldiers aboard the chopper. Per their report, it is believed that there are no survivors at this time, but a response was still underway on Thursday morning.
Early this morning, Duffy spoke to the press about the incident after staying up all night to monitor the situation. “I don’t want to go into too much detail we have about the information we have from the FAA. Obviously, it is not standard to have aircraft collide, I want to be clear on that,” he noted.
“Everything was standard in the leadup to the crash,” he explained. “Now obviously, something happened here. You’ll get more information and more details as this investigation moves forward.”
Duffy said that military aircraft routinely flew near the Reagan airport and that the presence of military craft was not unusual.
He announced they had located the two aircraft, including the fuselage of the American Airlines craft and recovery is ongoing.
“We will not rest until we have answers for the families and for the flying public,” Duffy said.
The terrible incident has raised criticism across the board. Even President Donald Trump voiced his concern about the seemingly unbelievable accident, which happened on a clear night in the D.C. area.
He wrote on Truth Social:
“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!!!”