A regional American Airlines passenger jet and a Black Hawk military helicopter collided over Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night in the nation's first major commercial airline crash since 2009. There are confirmed fatalities from the collision,

Aviation experts have warned for years about near collisions at airports around the US, citing air traffic control shortages and airspace congestion.

A jet with 60 passengers and four crew members collided with an Army helicopter while approaching Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., sending the two aircraft plummeting into the Potomac River. Everyone on board the two aircraft is feared dead, officials said Thursday.

Grainy video footage taken in the dark of night, seemingly by an airport CCTV camera, appears to capture the moment American Airlines Flight 5342 was in collision with a U.S.

Donald Trump gave a briefing on the Jan. 29 helicopter-airplane crash on Jan. 29, in which a U.S. Army Black Hawk Helicopter collided midair with American Airlines Flight 5342 as it approached Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

D.C. police confirmed a crash had taken place over the Potomac and that search and rescue operations were taking place in the river. Donald Trump later weighed in.

Political leaders had warned about the dangers of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C. months before an American Airlines flight collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on its approach to the airport.

Without providing any evidence, Trump harshly attacked Democrats for supposedly lowering standards for air traffic controllers, which he suggested could have led to the crash.

"Just the horror that the parents are going through. It just that blows me away. It makes me so sad for the families," said Joanne Kispert, 74, whose father died in the 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in New York in 2001.

Latest updates on the midair collision between an American Airlines passenger plane headed to DCA and an Army Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac River.

64 people were aboard the American Eagle Flight 5342, operated by PSA Airlines, while the U.S. Army Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk had three soldiers aboard. So far 27 people have been recovered from the plane and one from the helicopter, Donnelly added.