February 10, 2025 by Max Vogel and Thomas Isenovski (‘26)
Over the past week, two tragedies in aviation have unfolded in the United States, breaking the nation’s streak of almost 16 years without a single fatality in a commercial plane crash – the last being in 2009 involving Colgan Air flight 3407 over Buffalo, NY. Now, these two rare occurrences just 3 days apart start to raise many questions about the safety of flights in the US and have made many people nervous about flying again.
Wednesday, January 29th, 2025 – A CRJ700 Jet operated by American Airlines was scheduled to fly from Wichita, Kansas to Reagan Washington National Airport on the night of January 29th. The flight was carrying 64 people on the night of the crash – 60 passengers and 4 crew members. Many of the passengers on the flight were world class junior figure skaters returning home after competing in the Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita. The flight was full of both US and Russian prodigies, as well as coaches and parents. The other aircraft involved in the crash was a US Army Black Hawk Helicopter carrying three people.
As the CRJ700 was flying a pattern approach into runway 33, it was one of the dozens of commercial aircraft in line to land at the airport that night. It was lined up in a queue of jets spaced about two minutes apart, and was about two minutes away from landing when the Black Hawk helicopter requested to cross the path of landing planes. The Black Hawk helicopter was following a different approach pattern as the jets arrived via runway 33 and thus had to cross the line of jets. To achieve this, the air traffic controllers let the Black Hawk cross the line of air traffic by using the process of visual separation. The helicopter pilots seemingly thought that they had the CRJ700 in sight, but they confused it for the plane behind it and crossed in its path. This, and the helicopter being too high of an elevation at the wrong time put it on a collision course with the
Photo source:reuters.com
CRJ700 and crashed over the Potomac River at 8:47 pm EST-less than one minute before the CRJ700 flight was scheduled to land. As of now, the data is still very hazy and faulty until the official investigation is published, but this accident is extremely devastating for the families and loved ones of the 67 victims.
Friday, January 31st, 2025 – A medevac Learjet aircraft taking off from Philadelphia International Airport, bound for Missouri, and with a final destination of Tijuana, Mexico, crashed shortly after takeoff near a shopping mall in Northeast Philadelphia. All 6 people on the aircraft were killed, and 1 person was killed on the ground. 24 people were also reported injured, with 5 in the hospital. These numbers are subject to change however, as there have been reports of missing persons in the area after the crash. Among the passengers on the aircraft was a girl who was returning home to Mexico after receiving treatment for a life-threatening illness. All 6 on board were Mexican citizens.
After the plane crashed there was a large explosion, with debris flying everywhere, injuring a few people. Multiple homes were reported to have caught on fire; and as a result were destroyed. This crash, although of somewhat a smaller magnitude than the Washington D.C crash a few days prior to it, damaged the community around the area of the accident. While the D.C plane crashed into a river, this Learjet crashed into a highly populated area and displaced many from their homes, causing significant damage to this part of Northeast Philadelphia.
NTSB investigators recently found the black box of the plane, which includes the cockpit voice recorder. This is very crucial for investigators to figure out what happened to this plane, and how it came slamming into this Philadelphia Neighborhood. It will take Philadelphia some time to recover from this tragic accident, and hopefully we will get some answers and closure on this accident in the near future.
Photo source: 6abc.com
Live Updates: Deadly medical jet crash in Philly – NBC10 Philadelphia