Images of rescue teams working the site where a PSA Airlines regional jet crashed on 29 January recall another incident 43 years earlier involving an Air Florida passenger jet that crashed several miles north.
Both incidents involved passenger aircraft going down into or near an ice-strewn Potomac River. Both happened in January and both involved water rescues.
PSA Airlines flight 5342, an MHIRJ CRJ700, collided with a Sikorsky UH-60 helicopter at about 21:00 local time on 29 January, shortly before the regional jet was to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National airport, the Federal Aviation Administration confirms.
The agency has not confirmed that the aircraft then crashed, but numerous local media outlets report that both aircraft went down into the Potomac River.
A massive rescue effort is now under way, with emergency personnel working on boats and in helicopters. It is unclear if any people survived, and media outlets are reporting that shocked relatives of passengers have been waiting for information at Reagan National.
CRJ700s carry about 70 passengers, and media are reporting that the aircraft was full.
Another commercial aircraft went down in the Potomac River 43 years earlier, on 13 January 1982, just two miles north of the 29 January crash.
Shortly after taking off from Reagan National during a snowstorm, that aircraft, an Air Florida Boeing 737-200, slammed into the northbound span of the 14th Street Bridge connecting Arlington in Virginia to Washington, DC. Parts of the aircraft ended up in the water.
The ensuing emergency response involved the crew of a National Park Service helicopter rescuing several survivors. At one point, the helicopter crew dropped a life ring from a rope to pull survivors from the water to the shore. After one survivor lost their grip on the life ring, a bystander jumped into the river, swam to the survivor and pulled them to shore.
The Air Florida crash killed 78 people, including four people that had been on the bridge, and 74 of the 79 people aboard the jet.
The National Transportation Safety Board attributed that crash to the crew’s failure to use an engine anti-ice system, among other factors.
