After the fatal mid-air collision over Washington D.C. in January, the Coast Guard sent nearly 300 personnel, five full-size cutters and small boats from 11 stations to aid in recovery efforts.
The Jan. 29 collision sent an Army helicopter and a commercial jet into the cold waters of the Potomac River adjacent to Washington D.C. just before 9 p.m. An American Airlines jet approaching Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. collided with an Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that was flying a training mission out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
The crash killed 60 passengers and four crew members from the civilian flight and three soldiers aboard the Black Hawk. The Army originally identified two of the male crew members, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves and Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, and withheld the third female junior pilot’s name. That pilot was later identified as Capt. Rebecca Lobach.
In a release last week, the Coast Guard detailed its full-throttle response to the crash from bases, stations and ships across the northeast. In all, the service sent 278 Coast Guardsmen and civilian volunteers from the Coast Guard Auxiliary from 33 units across the east coast to assist with crash site recovery operations, according to a news release.
“We put all available resources to bear on this response,” Capt. Patrick Burkett, commander, Sector Maryland – National Capital Region said in the release. “We had many Coast Guard small boat stations and cutters arrive at the scene that morning and days after. We called in additional crews to help from Sector Delaware Bay to make sure we kept a 24/7 presence on the waterway and support by any means we could.”
While the local Washington D.C. unit set up an incident management team to coordinate communications, other Coast Guard units were tasked with protecting first responders out in the Potomac River waters, aiding in victim recovery, assisting salvage operations of the two aircraft and supporting the National Transportation Safety Board’s incident investigation. While crews searched through the icy waters for debris and the aircrafts’ black boxes, the Coast Guard also helped with local vessel traffic since the water north of the bridge connecting Alexandria, Virginia and Oxon Hill, Maryland was closed off.
“We came from over 70 miles away that morning before sunrise, not really sure what to expect on-scene,” Petty Officer 3rd Class Corbin Singleton, a machinery technician with Station St. Inigoes, Maryland said.
The Coast Guard’s Philadelphia unit traveled more than 100 miles to Washington overnight while response boat crews from Curtis Bay, Annapolis, Oxford, Crisfield arrived from nearby stations in Maryland.
By the end of the week, the Coast Guard had sent crews from 11 small boat stations from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey and five cutters were used for marine protection, navigation, fast response and construction efforts.
The Capital DC region has been a busy time for the Coast Guard, which responded to the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in March 2024 after a commercial container ship crashed into one of the support pillars.
“Having also responded to the Key Bridge collapse last year, this aircraft collision was another heartbreaking reminder of how quickly tragedy can unfold,” said Sector Maryland – National Capital Region command center chief Lt. Stasia Ellis. “Coast Guard first responders demonstrated exceptional courage and dedication, working tirelessly alongside our partners to bring answers and closure to those affected.”
The cause of the crash remains unclear but suspicion has focused on the Army crew and questions of if they misidentified the onrushing passenger jet in the crowded, confusing skies above Washington. In a Feb. 14 press conference, NTSB officials said the Army crew in the Black Hawk was likely wearing night vision goggles at the time of the crash, which could have been washed out or otherwise degraded by the city lights of Washington, adding to confusion between the pilots. On the helicopter’s flight recorder, neither mentioned they were removing their night vision goggles, a discussion they would have had as a standard flight practice if one of them had taken them off.
Officials also said that preliminary reviews of the recovered black boxes indicated the pilots may incorrectly judged or relayed their altitude while radio transmissions of traffic alerts from air traffic controllers were not received by the Black Hawk crew.