The U.S. government has admitted fault for the deadly Jan. 29, 2025, midair crash of a U.S. Army UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter and American Eagle Bombardier CRJ-700 passenger plane in Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people. American Eagle flight 5342 was on approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when it collided with the Black Hawk.
The admission of liability was made in a more than 200-page Department of Justice court filing yesterday in response to lawsuits from the victims’ families. The filing noted “the United States admits that it owed a duty of care to plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident.”
As contributing factors, the suit highlights the military and the American Eagle pilots’ “failure to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid each other” and claims that the controller at Reagan International Airport “negligently violated” an FAA order by “failing to follow the procedures for visual separation” between the helicopter and commercial jet.
American Airlines and the regional carrier operating the American Eagle flight, PSA Airlines, have made motions to have the claims against their companies dismissed, arguing that while it empathizes with the families, the NTSB’s investigative hearings confirmed the American Eagle crew complied with all required federal procedures and industry-standard operating practices and the real responsibility lies with the U.S. government.
At the time of the accident, according to several reports, only one controller was working the tower, which has been cited as a procedural and staffing concern. The controller asked the helicopter crew twice if it had the jet in sight. The pilots answered in the affirmative both times and requested visual separation approval, which the controller granted.
Questions were raised at the NTSB’s investigative hearings July 30 to Aug. 1 on how well the pilots could spot the plane while wearing night vision goggles, and if the pilots and controller were in fact referring to the same jet in the crowded airspace. FAA officials acknowledged during the hearings that the Reagan controllers had become overly reliant on visual separation.
In the filing, the government also admitted it knew of near-miss events between the Army-operated Black Hawk helicopters and aircraft transiting in and around helicopter routes in Washington, D.C., and due to its failure to act on that information, “this midair collision was tragically an accident waiting to happen.”
The NTSB is still investigating the accident and has not yet released a final accident report.
