Multiple deaths have been reported after an American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided with an Army helicopter carrying three while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, according to the Associated Press.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the crash happened just before 9 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, when a jet that departed from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military helicopter on a training flight on approach to an airport runway.
Related: What we know: Multiple deaths reported in passenger jet, Army helicopter collision near DC
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard flew out of Reagan National Airport the same night.
Bouchard said he went on a plane at the airport that night, and when he got home, he received multiple texts from people who knew he was in Washington that night to ask if he was okay and if he was on the plane that collided with the Army helicopter.
“Even though I’m a business where we see tragedy all the time, you know that every day is a blessing. It’s chilling even to me now,” said Bouchard.
Bouchard said he’s been monitoring the updates on the investigation into the collision through an intelligence thread that tracks any kind of major incident to determine if it’s intentional or not.
“I think there’s going to be a determination, ultimately, by a lot of investigative work—whether it was a pilot error, whether it was a tower error, all those kinds of things,“ said Bouchard. ”It’s hard to understand how this could happen with so many tracking capabilities in the sky, especially around that part of the country. It’s so well tracked about what’s in the air.”
The sheriff touched on his experience with helicopters while working in the sheriff’s office, saying there’s an audible alert in the helicopter if it senses that there’s going to be some kind of collision or an aircraft in the area.
“I don’t know if all systems were operating if all those kinds of things were working,” said Bouchard. “I think that’s something they’re going to look into.”
To hear the full interview, you can watch the video at the top of the page.
