hearing those officials say that they are still engaged in what they called a rescue operation right now. but clearly, given the temperature of the water, given the impact of the crash itself, and if those people being pitched into the water, 64 people on the plane, three crew on the helicopter with every passing minute, it seems less and less likely that we will hear stories of survival. it is going to be a very tough day in washington, d.c. and the surrounding area. it is going to be a very tough day in kansas indeed for the nation. we will continue our coverage now of this tragic event on approach to washington national airport. >> 2 a.m. here in washington.

tragedy striking in the skies over the nation's capital, an american airlines flight coming in for a landing at ronald reagan national airport, colliding with an army helicopter. search and rescue teams are now racing against time in the hopes of finding survivors. hi, everybody. i'm kevin corke has mentioned in washington, where it is 2 a.m. >> and i'm jonathan hunt, live in los angeles. it's 11 p.m. pacific time here. a huge emergency response dispatched, as you would imagine, to the scene. at this point, the number of fatalities has not been confirmed. but we do know there were 64 people on board the american airlines jet. the airline has offered its condolences just a short time ago. >> i'd like to express our deep sorrow about these events. this is a difficult day for all of us at american airlines, and our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members,

partners, first responders along with their families and loved ones. >> devastation near the nation's capital as a black hawk helicopter collides. and of course, it was a part of that crash with that aircraft, as you just saw there. our senior congressional correspondent chad pergram has been on the ground throughout with tremendous reporting tonight, giving us not just the nuts and bolts of what's happening, but also helping us understand the context of the space that we've all been looking at. chad, we're watching video from that kennedy center camera there, that what it looks like. what exactly happened on the right side of the screen there? of course, we're all speculating. this video is from fairly far away. what do you think of what you've seen and what can you tell us based on where you are at this hour? >> well, we're on the south side of the airport on the virginia side. the airport itself is not in washington, d.c. it's in northern virginia, in arlington, which is directly

across the river from the nation's capital. the access points to washington, d.c. it's very close to get in and out. there's a lot of members of congress who use this airport to get to the capital, because it's such a quick trip via car or even the metro rail. in fact, there was a great debate about shutting down this airport after nine over 11 because the flight path would take planes so close to the white house and the capitol. of course, you know, the u.s. capitol was the intended target of the fourth plane on nine over 11. and, of course, one plane hit the pentagon. but they really tightened up the rules about flying in and out of reagan national airport. i'm going to kind of give you some geography here to understand where we are. so over my right shoulder, that is where the runway is. but over my left shoulder here. this is the southern part of the potomac river, where the plane from wichita was coming in. it was coming up the river this way from the south. sometimes they approach from the south and take off to the north. that's what they were doing tonight. and there is a pier that goes

out into the river with all these individual lights. these are essentially runway lights, because the runway here at reagan national airport is notoriously short, and it's a very busy airport compared to, say, dulles international airport, which is a monstrosity of an airport about 25 miles from here. they just actually have more traffic here than they do out at dulles airport. and so and that's been the issue about adding flights here at reagan national airport. so that plane was coming in on this side onto that short runway. and that's where the collision happened with the with the army helicopter from fort belvoir. fort belvoir is a military base just to the south. it's close to mount vernon, george washington's home just to the south of washington, dc, also along the banks of the potomac river. the thing that has struck me in the past bit, and it's gone quiet here in about the past 30 minutes. for quite a while, we had helicopters up in the air with their big searchlights scanning their beams of light down on the water. they started to get very close to the shoreline here for quite a

while, and then they had several different police and fire and rescue boats. and on these piers immediately behind me, that's where some police, police officers came down and started looking in the water with their flashlights, just to see if they could pick up any debris or wreckage or, god forbid, bodies or even body parts. i was told at one point. here are some stats to know on the potomac river at this point. 3:09 a.m. eastern time. that's going to be low tide. high tide is going to come at 8:45 a.m. eastern time. so that will influence some of the search and rescue here. and that's why they were starting to look in this region, because they thought the current, the way it was developing, that it might have brought some of that debris down here, sunrise. and that's going to be very important in a mission like this is going to be at 7:15 a.m. eastern time. but but all that action that we had here about 45 minutes to an hour ago that has for the most part ceased. and again, the damning thing in this entire operation

is that we haven't heard anything about survivors. i mean, you know, i was out here just a little bit after nine. the plane crashed with the helicopter about 845 847, 836. i think we've heard a couple of different numbers there. so not long between 830 and 9:00, basically. and so if there's anybody in that water, when i arrived a little bit after nine, it was 41 degrees. now that temperature is well down into the 30s. this is not going to be a bone chilling night in washington, d.c, compared to some of the weather that we had last week for the inauguration that was moved indoors, but it's still pretty cold and that water is even colder. the depth of the potomac river right now at this stage is about seven feet. if you're closer to the shoreline and about the most about 20, 21ft. and even since we've been on the air here, gentlemen, we have another helicopter. i can see its beam of light here. it's coming up. you can probably hear it in the background. it's going to come up and kind of go over the river again. they were looking at this shoreline closest to where i am, which is the

western shoreline on the virginia side, just a little bit ago. they're now working a little bit further south and working over toward the washington, dc line, which is the eastern shoreline of the potomac river. this is a tragic, sad, dark, devastating night here in washington, d.c. and, you know, one of the guests made a comment earlier that, you know, this is a federally run airport. there's going to be a major investigation into what happened here. congress is going to have a lot of questions, in particular, because they fly in and out. members of congress do in and out of this airport so much. and because of that history that we talked about nearly a quarter century ago, about the debate about whether or not they should even keep this airport open in the post nine over 11 world. guys, back to you, chad. >> thank you so much. hang with us, jonathan, what do you have? >> i want to go now. kevin, to our correspondent, mark meredith, who's also very near the scene. and mark, what is

the sense you are getting of where we are in the rescue operation now? does it still seem like it's a very active attempt to find anybody who may have survived? or does the activity seem to be pulling back, maybe for the last few nighttime hours before we get to daylight here? >> jonathan, it certainly feels like the activity has calmed down significantly even within the last hour. i thought chad made so many great points about what the atmosphere has been like out here. originally, right after the crash and the hours after, we saw multiple helicopters crisscrossing the potomac, going back and forth, spotlights on looking for anything. we saw those emergency vehicles rushing both on this side of the potomac in virginia, as well as across to d.c. but since then, no, it is completely changed. and even in the news conference where we heard from dc's mayor, we heard from the airport authority, we heard from the kansas congressional delegation. nobody wanted to come out and say that this was a mass casualty incident. however, reading between the lines of

what they were saying, it was very clear that this is where it was heading. and even the mayor was asked about. has there been confirmation of the number of people recovered? and she said she didn't want to get into specifics on numbers, but they simply weren't denying that report either. and i thought that was quite telling. so yes, they talked about this still being an active search and rescue operation, but given the weather that chad was just talking about these cold temperatures, how many hours we are afterwards and that we haven't heard the good news leak out, only the bad, i think that is quite telling. we know that reagan airport is going to remain shut down, at least for another nine hours until 11 a.m. eastern. it is certainly possible that things will get pushed back. i would imagine even traffic is still greatly reduced tomorrow inside the airport because even though it was a wednesday night into the evening hours, there was still plenty of people getting ready to head out or come in after landing. they have changed all of the boards within the airport, so instead of seeing the flight that would say heading to atlanta, los angeles, miami, it just says due to an emergency, all aircraft are being held. please be patient and check with your

airline. so nobody was getting information inside the terminal. everything was simply shut down. any aircraft that would have been heading out to take off, to go taxi to leave or taxi to take off to leave, were simply being sent back to their gates. and one thing that's been really interesting in this situation and interesting is probably the wrong word, but the more morbid part about this is that we're seeing the video of the collision captured so quickly. we've seen it from multiple different angles now, because there are so many cameras pointed on this airport. there is a lot of attention in this airport as chad was talking about. so we are getting real time reaction to what happened. yes, it will all be part of a more broad investigation. the ntsb will issue a preliminary report, and then months later we'll get that final report. this one will have a lot of interest. it's also notable, jonathan, that today, first full day for the new transportation secretary, sean duffy. he was asked in the news conference what's your reaction to this, given that this is your first day on the job, how are you handling this? and he simply said that now is the time to focus on the search and

rescue efforts, and that it's an all hands on deck situation coordinating within the federal government. jonathan, there will be a lot of looking at, you know, what went wrong, what kind of radio traffic was happening behind the scenes, who was getting messages, who wasn't. we know that the pentagon is also involved in this investigation. the defense secretary, pete hegseth, saying he's offering full resources, but because it was a military aircraft as well, there is going to be that cross connection about what went wrong, what happened and what can be done to prevent this in the future. chad brought up a great point about reagan airport being looked at, as you know, is it safe enough? after nine over 11, there were still concerns about safety as of the last several months, because there's so much air traffic at this airport, yet there's still been a push by many people to add more flights in. why? jonathan, it's a very convenient airport. there are so many members of congress, businessmen, tourists that love flying into dca because it is so close to the city center. when you land, it's one of the most incredible views coming into dc because you fly right over the lincoln memorial. you

pass by the washington monument. you can see the white house and the hill. that's how close you get to the city. but there's been a lot of focus about whether or not the airport can handle additional traffic. does it have the resources it needs because there are so many flights going out? they just added new routes out of here. there's a new flight to seattle, a new flight to san diego. so they're still adding air traffic out of this airport. even though there have been fears about congestion, we have no idea if congestion played any role in this crash, jonathan. but there's still going to be this look at what else can change, what could happen. i want to talk also about what we're seeing out here in terms. >> of the. >> scene itself. yes. we're still seeing those emergency vehicles with their lights on, but far fewer of them. the helicopters have calmed down as well. we know american airlines, which was not the operator of this aircraft, but it was their regional carrier, is sending a go team, which is one of the crisis communications teams. so, jonathan, those are the people that will be out there to meet with victims families. they'll be out there to handle the media. they'll be out there to get the government what it needs in its investigation. we know the ceo of american airlines also making plans last

minute to make a trip up to dc americans based in dallas. we don't know if that's where the ceo is or if he was somewhere else, but he will be here. we also would imagine that we're going to hear from folks on the ground in kansas, as they still come to grips with what's happening. but we'll let you know, jonathan, if there is any more pick up in activity. but right now it's just the stray helicopter, a much different scene than it was just three hours ago. jonathan. >> mark, mark, thank you for continuing your excellent reporting from on the scene there. and as mark was saying there, essentially this at some point will move from a search and rescue operation to simply a search and salvage operation. officials will tell us when they officially decide that that is the case. there are, as mark was also saying, a lot of questions to be answered. president trump has already begun to ask a couple of those in a sort of roundabout way, via some of his social media posts that will possibly raise some eyebrows. for more on how

the trump administration is responding, fox news channel's chanley painter joins us live from new york. hello, chanley. >> hey, jonathan, you're right. president trump already reacting on truth social calling this a quote, terrible night thanking first responders. and perhaps, as you said, asking questions. we are all wondering, saying this quote, the airplane was on a perfect, a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. the helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. it is a clear night. the lights on the plane were blazing. why didn't the helicopter go up or down or turn? why didn't the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane? this is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. not good, he says. and trump's transportation secretary, sean duffy, who was just sworn in tuesday already facing his first major incident on the job, immediately pledging the full support of the ntsb and

all responding agencies and authorities. addressing the media moments ago. watch. >> if we are going to offer full support to those on the ground, to the mayor, but also to the ntsb, who is going to be conducting the investigation in this matter. we are going to provide all the support that's necessary. >> and other key trump administration officials also voicing their support. homeland security secretary kristi noem posting this on x, quote. all resources will be available from the u.s. coast guard for search and rescue efforts, and says they are actively monitoring the situation and stand ready to support local responders. secretary of defense pete hegseth posting this, quote, absolutely tragic search and rescue efforts, still ongoing prayers for all impacted souls and their families. investigation launched immediately by army

and dod, meaning the pentagon and the army are actively investigating. and the ntsb said it has launched that go team to investigate the crash, as well, as we hope to find out answers soon. >> jonathan chanley, thank you for that comprehensive wrap up of how the administration, this very new administration, and a brand new transportation secretary in sean duffy are reacting. kevin. >> jonathan, thanks. fox report host jon scott. the great jon scott joins us. he is, by the way, a licensed pilot. jon, before we sort of unpack what we know so far, i want to share with you and with the folks at home, just a bit from the atc, air traffic control, right around the moment that this accident happened. and then i want to get your reaction on the other side. take a listen. >> american 4782 by mount vernon american 473132017. did you see that? next 176

american. 3132 go round turn left and 250 clementine 3000 350 3000 american 3130. >> if you could hear it, john. it sounded as if one of the air traffic controllers in the background said, ooh, as in reacting to the fireball, reacting to the apparent collision between the fixed wing aircraft and the helicopter. your reaction to what you just heard there, and does that correspond with, at least from your perspective, what we've seen in the video so far? >> yes it does. and, you know, tough to tell who you hear in the background, but probably someone in the control tower there up very high, and they have a pretty good view of the horizon. obviously, they're talking they're requesting information from the helicopter. and at first my thought was that the helicopter is not answering them, but friends of mine, pilot friends

of mine who have military and commercial aviation experience, pointed out to me that when atc is transmitting, they're always transmitting on two different frequencies. there's a vhf frequency that jetliners use, for instance, the american flight and even little airplanes like mine use vhf. but there's also a uhf frequency that is reserved for military aircraft. and when a controller speaks, he is transmitting on both frequencies at the same time. now, there are aviation monitoring services that provide us these clips, like the one you just played, a clip that you know has the air traffic controller talking to the helicopter and others in the vicinity. we don't hear a response from the helicopter, but that doesn't mean that the chopper pilot didn't give one. he may have given one on a uhf

frequency, that the audio service is simply not monitoring. so i said earlier on fox that that the pilot didn't respond. and that was possibly incorrect. he may have responded, we just don't hear it because it's on a uhf frequency that is reserved for the military and the monitoring services possibly don't monitor that frequency. >> you know, i'm just listening very carefully to what you're explaining there, and that makes complete sense to me. what what makes less sense, frankly, john, is, look, you call the ball, there can't be an aircraft. i don't care who you are. and if you're an atc, you have to make sure that everybody is clear about who is where. and it is inexplicable to me that this could have happened. and so i'm sort of trying to step back and say, okay, kevin, think this through. it is night. it's a

training flight, and you and i can talk about the wisdom of even conducting a training flight near a hot runway. in this circumstance, d.c. is a very active air environment, and yet i'm still trying to figure out, let me show the map to the folks at home. i'm trying to figure out how we ended up here, john. and i know i'm putting a lot on your plate, but can you at least sort of talk us through where they are and how this could have happened? >> sure. take a look at at the map. this is an aviation chart of reagan airport. on the left there of the river. it looks a little strange to the untrained eye, but the three crossing runways on the left of the river are reagan airport and its runways. now, if you see that ribbon, that kind of purplish ribbon on the right hand side of the river, that's

route four. that's a helicopter route. it's reserved for helicopter routes. but the interesting thing to me is that you are restricted. the helicopters are restricted on route four to an altitude no higher than 200ft above mean sea level. and then when they get south of the wilson bridge, which crosses the river at the bottom part of the chart there, when they get south of the river of the bridge, they can climb to an altitude of 300ft mean sea level. well, this accident took place at about 350ft or. yeah, possibly 400ft. so, you know, the ntsb will make the final determination, but it sure seems like if this collision took place at 350 or 400ft, someone in the helicopter was not paying attention to their altitude. now, that said, you know,

flying a fixed wing aircraft, i've, you know, been 100ft above my desired altitude and it can happen in a nanosecond. it doesn't take long in some of these, you know, in a plane or a chopper to get higher than you're supposed to be. but i think that's going to be a very large contributing factor to this accident. >> well, i'm glad you explained that. and i live in the district, as you know. and so helicopters fly. not maybe right overhead, but certainly sometimes it sounds like it, but they're all generally going to be coming up from south of the wilson bridge. and so, so many questions that yet need to be answered. john, thank you so much for your knowledge and your wisdom and experience. we'll touch base with you again here in just a bit over to jonathan hunt. >> and kevin. we have with us now mike cofield. he's a commercial pilot of more than 30 years. mike, obviously

everybody wants answers. we will get the official answers from the ntsb eventually. but president trump himself, among those already saying in his social media post tonight that the aircraft, the plane, the regional jet was on what he called a perfect and routine line. so he seems to be pointing the finger at something going wrong in terms of the helicopter crew and possibly air traffic control instructions. is that what you see in what is admittedly the very early going here? >> mike well thank you jonathan i it is awful early as you know, i was in charge of the congressional investigation for the twa 800 investigation years ago, and it takes a long time. i mean, in terms of one of the items tonight, they're going to be looking over the next 2 to 3

weeks at the debris field because they'll be able to determine where the debris field, exactly what direction, what speed, and the physics of actually what happened. if i could explain what it is. and, and everyone you've had has been exceptional and especially i want to say you couldn't have asked for a better person on the political side in terms of senator jerry moran from kansas, not only has he got a great heart, but he's one of the most knowledgeable people about aviation in washington, d.c. and a dear friend. and so i look forward to him and the work that he's going to do with his committee. but what happened is, is the as the american psa flight, which is a is contracted by american airlines, they're flying a final approach directly north on runway one. so all the aircraft that are coming into land are flying on that same approach. even if. and then what happens is the smaller regional jets can have the ability and the relative to time and temperature and

weight, they can actually take runway three three because it's shorter and it goes closer to their gates. so at some point in that arrival, they were offered runway three three. well those those guys were looking at hey that's that's a better deal for us. and so all they do is they kind of peel off. so they peel off on the due north runway, and then they make a shallow left hand turn and land back on three three. what happens about the helicopters is that the army and any and the other folks use those helicopters for special flights. they come down from the south from from the dea headquarters, from cia, from dulles and from the naval observatory. and they run right down the river. on the river, you see them almost literally every day. and then as they come to work, the river kind of opens there at the past the tidal basin. they move off to

the left side of the river and then run back down towards mount vernon and then turn right into fort bolivar. that's where they were going. >> so, mike, do you think that one of the things that is going to be looked at in the longer run here is those military flights, the military helicopter flights along what is essentially that commercial flight corridor, whether that is something that should continue. >> yeah, i think that's a great that is one of the greatest. that's one of the great questions that the ntsb will look at. they'll look at airspace design, right. they'll bring in some experts that'll say, you know, this is how it was originally designed. the traffic volume can handle this much. and we're we're actually running this much. and is there a time at night where they're doing just to be quite honest, there's a curfew at dulles at dca. so relative to noise. and

so they could run those training flights at night, later at night or early in the morning during, during this time of night. and there would not be as much traffic and it would be a safer operation. i'm sure the ntsb will look at that. >> yeah, mike, we'll come back to you later, if we may. we're trying to get to all our voices here over this hour, but stick with us if you don't mind, kevin. >> thank you. jonathan. joining us now, fox news contributor and former d.c. police detective ted williams. ted, your thoughts on what we've seen transpire here tonight? >> well, kevin, first let me offer my condolences and prayers as to what and all who have been affected here tonight. i got to tell you, i know what it means to be all hands on deck in a situation like this. and i use the word all hands on deck. i mean, law

enforcement officers, first responders from all over the metropolitan area responded to what i defined as. and it has not been officially announced. but i do believe we're looking, unfortunately, at a mass casualty here. the bottom line is the night time is the enemy of first responders. and these first responders are doing all they can to see about recovering anybody that may very well have been involved in this incident, this sad, tragic incident. but i would have to believe and knowing this narrow airspace as i do, because i travel out of it all the time, that the they're going to be looking specifically at the air traffic controllers, they've got a definitely or recover the black boxes. that's going to be

very, very important in this investigation. one of the things i'm hoping that they will do is and i think initially, they're going to take the lead of the ntsb and but there are going to be many, many investigations are as to what happened here. tragically tonight or in washington dc. kevin. >> tough night for the city. ted, just very quickly, your thoughts on how the city reacts and responds to this? >> well, i think the city has acted in a very professional manner, and i think everyone involved have i can tell you that on january 13th, 1982, i was on the ground in the city when a large airplane leaving our national airport crashed into the 14th street bridge, and there was a complete and thorough investigation of that matter. >> ted williams, joining us

tonight as we continue our coverage here on fox news channel ten. thank you. stand by. jonathan, over to you, kevin. >> thank you. joining us now to talk about the search and rescue efforts, former fbi agent and federal air marshal jonathan gilliam. jonathan, i know you were one of the fbi agents, one of the first, i believe, on scene at the miracle on the hudson, for instance, in 2009, though obviously that was a controlled landing rather than a crash, but also for that commuter plane crash with a helicopter very similar to this incident, albeit a much smaller plane in 2009 on the hudson. so what is your reaction? seeing what we have seen over the last few hours? jonathan. >> well, it was very interesting the compare and contrast. >> those two. the miracle on the hudson, where it was a controlled landing on the on the hudson river, and the response was almost instantaneously by the circle line ferries as compared to the

crash where a commuter plane was coming down into the hudson river, and a liberty city helicopter was going up, and they just happened to be in the place where they couldn't see each other and they collided. but one thing about that incident that is kind of reminding me, this incident reminded me of that is that in the hudson river with the liberty city helicopter, the commuter plane had taken off from teterboro airport had. and as soon as they got to a certain altitude, teterboro handed off to air traffic control to newark. and when the newark air traffic controller said the frequency to the pilot of the private airplane, he read back the wrong frequency and the air traffic controller, who was texting, didn't confirm that it was the wrong frequency, so they were not able to communicate. as he went into the pathway on the hudson

where he hit the helicopter. i'm wondering in this situation if the they were reporting earlier that the helicopter and the airplane were on two different frequencies in the air traffic controller was speaking to both of them. what i'm wondering is if the air traffic controller was trying to communicate with the helicopter on the wrong frequency, and perhaps that's why they didn't get a response, but in. >> any circumstance. go ahead. yeah. go on. >> well, in any circumstance, i think the helicopter should have known that there that this aircraft was, was the potential, even if they weren't communicating with them, that that was a potential pathway for these commuter airplanes. and i'm still shocked that they veered directly into the line of the landing zone where these planes were coming in. right. it's very strange. >> and jonathan just i believe you if i if i'm right, you have

experience in water rescue missions as well. tell me a little bit about how difficult those conditions must be in the dark and the cold and the currents for rescuers in the potomac river right now? >> well, it's tremendous because one thing i have not heard mentioned tonight is the current in the potomac river. i don't know what it is right now, but in certain areas it does have a good current in that river. so as the plane went down, because they were high enough where the plane split, they're going to have debris and potential for bodies strewn out and then carried down in that waterway. and as soon as the responders get there, they have to try to figure out exactly what's going on. so they'll do an initial push of people into the water on boats and divers. but it takes a little bit, first of all, to stage everybody and then to assess what is actually

going on and what's needed. and in the dark it is it's a strange environment in the dark, because if you go too far offshore, you can literally lose your bearings and not figure out where you're at. and so especially if you're underwater at night, it's just very treacherous. and the pictures i've seen of the airplane, just airplane itself, the fuselage, it did break into two pieces of what they're saying, and i'm sure there's debris strewn all over the place. so you don't know what you're looking for in that dark environment. it's a very, very difficult. and when you add the cold into it, the fatigue that's happening and the adrenaline, it gets very, very disorienting and very fatiguing fast. >> yeah. extraordinary to think what those first responders are going through and are seeing as they work those waters there. and as we look on screen at a live picture of some of them gathering some of their equipment together, from the looks of things, that is from

arlington, virginia, that particular shot of those first responders right now, difficult to say what they have on the cart there. it looks as though it may be pieces of debris from from the crash. we don't know that for sure. jonathan gilliam, great to have your expertise. thank you so much for being with us in the early hours of this friday morning, kevin. >> good stuff there, jonathan. first responders hard at work trying to rescue as many people as they can after that devastating air crash here in washington, dc. again, we're hopeful, but at this hour, it doesn't look very good that there will be any survivors, at least so far. we're again hoping for the very best. we want to bring in former fema external affairs officer and first responder jason pack. jason, thank you for your time tonight. and again, i say i'm trying to be hopeful, and i think all americans are hopeful tonight. but as the hours go on and without any direct, any

direct instruction from the mayor or other officials that there has been an actual rescue, it's beginning to look less and less likely because of the conditions, as you heard jonathan allude to earlier, your thoughts on what we're watching here and what's happened tonight. >> kevin. >> good evening. >> you're right. >> as time goes. >> on, it does get a little more concerning for sure. if you're praying, folks, say an extra prayer for the men and women who are out there tonight looking for our our fellow citizens who are in harm's way. for sure. i guarantee you, though, kevin, the men and women who are at dc fire who are in their stations tonight about 830 before this happened, probably getting ready to wind up the shift and probably hoping for a routine shift. had no idea what they were going out to do tonight. and so if there are any hope at all of finding people, they are going to do everything they can. they sign up. that's why they sign up to serve folks. that's why we're all first responders. they're going to do everything that they can to find any

glimmer of hope and keep those eagle eyes peeled out there as you see some of the debris coming in on the carts there, it does become more worrisome and more troublesome. and so at some point, incident commanders are going to have to make the determination to turn this into a recovery operation. we're not there yet. we haven't even seen the light of day fall yet. so we're going to keep on the mission as tough as they can and make sure the that to give everyone the chance that they can to survive out here. and there's a lot of things going on right now. kevin, the incident commanders are planning to for the long haul really because they've got to map the debris field. as you heard, agent gilman, retired agent gilliam, they're talking about you want the debris field like the seas could be 1 or 2 knots there in the potomac. having worked at the fbi and fema up there for at least a decade, we're all familiar with. flying into that airport. it's an iconic airport. and, you know, it's just going to be horrific over the next few

hours and days here as they try to figure out what happened. >> quickly. jason, walk me through what happens when you get the call. i think a lot of people might be quite interested in what that's like, especially you go through your training. it's sort of in the back of your mind. and yet something like this happens and you have to be on point immediately. >> right? kevin? they probably the people on shift tonight probably run. you know, d.c. is a busy place. 10 or 15 calls already today. and then, you know, before, depending on if you're working at 24 or 12, you're reflecting on what happened that day. you're probably just coming in from another call. hopefully you've gotten something to eat, and then the bell goes off and you answer the call. that's what men and women around the country do every day that serve and protect our communities. nobody ever expects to go on the big one like this. and this is such a multi-agency response from the feds. you got the coast guard and dc kevin, you've got all those letter agencies, the park police,

everybody has plenty of equipment out there. you saw the boats earlier being launched, even though, as mr. gillum was saying, the hudson, you had the ferries right in operation and they were there. it didn't take that long to get the boats and the rescue water rescue equipment to the scene, because they're all right there along the edge. you looked at your wide shot there earlier. you saw the sea of red lights of the fire apparatus, that when's the last time you've seen that many pieces of emergency equipment in one place. and now you see you've got the they're setting up the recovery area. so when they do get pieces or parts out of the water there, they're able to bring them back and they'll, they'll probably find a hangar. i know in flight twa flight 800 there. they got a hangar. they took all the parts back, and they're able to kind of reassemble the pieces of the aircraft as they are coming back. you saw the thing earlier. it looked like the inside of, like where a window seat of an rj was kind of like the interior piece i saw earlier. they're rolling up. so

the currents are going to be a big, big issue, too. you know, 1 to 2 miles, a piece of debris can move there just in an hour or so. so you've got to plan for the debris fields. and i think the currents are like they are. normally you get planned to be as far as 3 or 4 miles down the potomac. they're headed toward mount vernon. and you could see take, take just quite a few days or weeks to kind of get all these pieces back. >> yeah, the work is just getting underway. jason, thank you so much for that. we certainly appreciate your time here tonight as we continue our coverage here on fox news channel. american airlines jet colliding with an army blackhawk near reagan international reagan national airport. and we are continuing to track the number of fatalities as the rescue effort continues. >> jonathan and kevin, we know that there were 64 people in all on board the regional jet, three people on board the u.s. army. blackhawk. no official

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near and active and fairly busy airport at night like this. is that common? >> well, this is a military flight, so of course this is going to operate, you know, under different rules than a regular training flight. but it's for instance, airline flights and other flights are conducting training all of the time. in fact, correct. when a new captain is getting upgraded, he has to get his line operating experience. and so actually those are flights with passengers where you'll have a copilot upgraded to captain, and you'll have a check pilot on board training him. so even the airlines are frequently conducting training, just, you know, in the day in and day out of their job. that part is not that unusual. but of course, what we're really looking into here is how did it penetrate the altitude that that airliner was at? because it appears, looking at the flight tracking, looking at the

flight path, looking at the airspeed, the altitude, the approach to that runway, that the airliner was where it was supposed to be. >> yeah. especially frankly, kathleen, if it's at like 350, 400ft up, that is higher than i would imagine that black hawk should have been, to say nothing of the fact that some of the video i've seen seem to suggest it was coming in black, as in lights out. and again, i'm trying to figure out any number or any manner of reason or explanation for that, but i don't want to dive too much into the speculation. what i would rather do is have you walk us through what happens now. we're looking at live pictures on the right side of our screen, courtesy of our fox affiliate in washington, wttg. we have seen some of the staff there pulling pieces of what appeared to be fuselage out of the water and then placed onto carts and then loaded up. tell me what happens there and what

we might see over the next several hours as we look forward to daybreak? >> well, as we move into this investigation, of course, not only are we going to have the ntsb involved and the faa, but we're actually going to have the us military. so that makes this a rather unique investigation. and of course, we'll make this one of the most investigated accidents probably to come in history. what they'll do is they'll take the pieces of the aircraft and recreate them. they'll take them and put them probably into a large, empty hangar, and try to rebuild that aircraft as best as they can, and also with whatever is left of the debris from the helicopter. and of course, they're looking for the black boxes from the airliner. we do not know at this point if the black hawk has any kind of recording device for its data or for the cockpit voice, but we do know that the psa crj jet will have that on board. and that one fortunate aspect is that the potomac in that area is quite shallow in some places less than ten feet. so it would

probably be expected that they will recover the two black boxes, the data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. quite shortly, hopefully. >> lastly, let me ask you about the training idea for, say, helicopter pilots. you made mention of the fact that there are different rules for the military versus, say, commercial. and yet i'm curious, are you surprised, as perhaps many others have been, that this could happen? sort of walk me through how something like this might have happened. i've heard someone speculate that it could have just been a lack of communication from the atc. >> well, we may find out that the helicopter was doing what's called see and avoid. it may have been operating under visual rules where they were given directions to look for this traffic and then visually seeing a void, which of course is challenging. you're over in ocean of lights, essentially. you've also got the dark river,

you've got lots of different aircraft. and so what they're going to be looking at is on those audio transcripts is did the black hawk crew actually report seeing this aircraft and if so, trying to piece together, were they actually looking at something else or did they not fully respond. we don't know that yet. but this is an incredibly busy airport. they sometimes say that the north south runway at dc is the most active runway in the united states. they had 25 million out of there last year. that was record same amount at dulles. but dulles. you have much more space, much more runways, longer runways. so, you know, the question is going to be asked is are we getting to capacity at reagan national? and this has been asked before, but actually what we're seeing is, is the flight numbers increasing the last few years and projected at least before this accident, to increase for next year. and the addition of international flights, which normally you don't see a lot of out of that airport. so that's the big question is going to be asked is what are we going to

do with the extreme heavy amount of traffic that we have going in and out of this airport, and how are we going to coordinate that with these military training flights? and just the surveillance that goes on in dc, even with civilian helicopters, right. >> especially when you're dealing with, as you pointed out, very short porches out there, 6800, 6900ft. not a lot of space, to be honest with you. kathleen bangs, joining us tonight. thank you so much for your time. and stick around. we'll see if we can't get more from you as we continue our coverage. but for now, over to my colleague jonathan hunt. >> and kevin. we are just getting word from u.s. figure skating that in a statement from them that several members of the figure skating community are believed to have been on board, that regional jet flying from wichita, kansas to washington, dc, there was a the u.s. figure skating championship wrapped up on the 26th in wichita. we believe

that there was a development camp for following that. that may have just wrapped up, and it may have been figure skaters from that development camp who were on board that flight, which collided with the helicopter. we've also heard from the russian news agency tass that a russian figure skater and coach who are apparently married, were also on board that flight. joining us now, lieutenant colonel darren gao, who is a former army battalion commander and black hawk pilot, lieutenant colonel, thank you for being here. tell me a little bit about from your experience as a black hawk pilot, as i understand it, they have been on visual flight rules. colonel. how does that impact the things that you see and do in a nighttime flight like that? >> yeah. jonathan. well, first of all, being in a in a

helicopter like that, you're nearly always operating close to the ground, especially around dc with within 200ft or so of the ground. and as has already been mentioned, the potential for that having been deviated from to have climbed to a further higher altitude may be a significant point if proven to be a fact. now operating under visual flight rules versus instrument flight rules. the instruments you're listening to an air traffic controller who is telling you what altitude to hold, what heading to hold, and really guiding you through the skies. and you're really your life is in their hands and you're and you're operating under some procedures, but you're also operating under basically the ability to be directed on almost everything you do visually, that specific airfield, of course. and i've flown over it myself. you you're operating off of mostly communications and procedures.

those are the two things that struck me the most when i saw at least the video that we've seen so far tonight, and there's much more we don't know. but they're restricted to a certain space, you know, vertically, horizontally altitudes, all these things, these corridors that are built, you have to stay within those and they're built for a specific reason to create the separation. but because aviation is a human endeavor and you're relying on the pilots of this aircraft to be able to be disciplined in their airmanship enough to adhere to those procedures, the ability to go from 200ft to 350ft, if for some reason you've stopped paying attention, even for a few seconds, it is pretty easy to do so. that's one of the that's one of the concerns i have. the second one would be the communications with air traffic control, be they radar or tower or both. what were they said? what were what were they told about the aircraft's

location? could they see it? and how, you know, what did the what did the fixed wing say as well? was there something wrong in there? don't know yet. that remains to be seen, but it's critical to note that the this aircraft, the blackhawk, the lima model black hawk specifically does not have your standard voice recorder black box that people are used to hearing about. you're going to have to rely on the external recordings of the tower, air traffic control and the videos that you've seen taken from various cameras around, around d.c. to piece together some. >> of that out of time. here, let me ask you this quickly. do we read anything into the fact that this was a training flight? does that mean that you've got a brand new pilot in there? does it mean that you've got an experienced pilot training new things, or could it mean absolutely anything? >> it can mean anything. it could be an inexperienced problem. it could be something that we're not even tracking. and i believe that's an answer that is going to have to come

from the dod investigation into the actual experience level and all the things that they would do to dig into the entire flight profile all the way back to the pre launch procedures that are normally adhered to. so right now, i wouldn't read too much into that yet. >> okay, colonel, we got to wrap it up there for this hour. thank you so much for all your expertise. as always we will continuing our coverage now as the search and as it stands at the moment, rescue operation continues on the banks of the potomac river and in the river itself. after this devastating collision between a black hawk helicopter and a regional jet flying from wichita, kansas, to dc 64 people on board the plane, three on board the helicopter. kevin corke and i will continue our coverage after a short break. >> it's called the pit. it's a classified prison. it's home to

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