Two employees at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority have been arrested over leaked video of an American Airlines passenger jet colliding with an Army helicopter.
The plane, carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, was approaching Reagan National Airport on Wednesday night when it was hit by a Black Hawk Army helicopter conducting a training flight.
Footage of the extraordinary incident quickly went viral, sparking frenzied conspiracy theories online.
That video was leaked to CNN by two members of staff at the airport, authorities now say, according to ABC.
The duo have been charged with computer trespass for allegedly making the unauthorized copy from Airports Authority records.
Mohamed Lamine Mbengue, 21, of Rockville, Maryland, was arrested on January 31 over the breach. He was booked into Arlington County Adult Detention Center but later released.
Then on Sunday, 45-year-old Jonathan Savoy, from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was arrested for the same incident. He was released on a summons by a magistrate.
Washington DC‘s airspace is notoriously congested and there have been mounting fears that a tragedy was on the horizon.
Former House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Peter DeFazio told Politico that lawmakers had ignored warnings in favor of adding more routes to make travel more convenient for them.
Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center shows two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to conjoin in a fireball
A large portion of the damaged plane fuselage is lifted from the Potomac River during recovery efforts after the American Airlines crash on February 03, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia
‘Every senator in particular wants a nonstop flight to and from wherever they live,’ he said.
‘The airport said, ”Don’t do it.” And they did it. So they added to what DCA said is already an overly congested and over-capacity airport.’
Since 2000, an additional 60 flights have been added into the airport.
Disturbing footage of Wednesday night’s crash raised questions about how it possibly could have occurred, given it was a relatively clear night and the plane was visible in the path of the helicopter.
The National Transportation Safety Board revealed that preliminary data showed conflicting readings about their altitudes at the time of the catastrophic collision.
Data from the passenger jet’s flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet, plus or minus 25 feet, when the crash happened Wednesday night. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk helicopter at 200 feet at the time.
The 100-foot discrepancy is yet to be explained, but if the impact did occur at 325ft, the crash would have occurred well-above the maximum allowed altitude of 200ft for helicopters in the area.
Investigators hope to reconcile the altitude differences with data from the helicopter’s black box, which is taking more time to retrieve because it became waterlogged after it plunged into the Potomac River. They also said they plan to refine the tower data, which can be less reliable.
A forensic team collects a piece of debris from the Potomac River
The accident occurred when an American Airlines jet from Wichita, Kansas collided with the Black Hawk over Washington DC Wednesday night, killing all 67 people aboard the two aircraft
No one survived the collision, which occurred as an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, with 64 people on board was preparing to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport
‘That’s what our job is, to figure that out,’ said NTSB member Todd Inman, who grew increasingly agitated with reporters’ questions seeking more information and clarity about the readings during a Saturday evening news conference.
Investigator in charge, Brice Banning, described the investigation as ‘complex’, noting: ‘There are a lot of pieces here. Our team is working hard to gather this data.’
Banning also discussed the last moments from the jet’s two black boxes, which captured sound in the cockpit and flight data.
‘The crew had a verbal reaction,’ he said, with the data recorder showing ‘the airplane beginning to increase its pitch.
‘Sounds of impact were audible about one second later, followed by the end of the recording.’
First responders confirmed Sunday that 55 of the 67 victims of America’s deadliest crash since 2001 have been identified.
Investigators began conducting interviews with air traffic control personnel on Monday, as well as with American Airlines and the U.S. Army on the operations side.
‘We’re going to have to understand what are standard operating procedures’ for a helicopter training mission, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said.
The passenger jet’s two black boxes captured sound in the cockpit and flight data. A crane retrieves part of the wreckage from the Potomac River, in the aftermath of the collision
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posed a series of questions about the crash on morning television news programs Sunday.
‘What was happening inside the towers? Were they understaffed?’ he asked on CNN.
‘The position of the Black Hawk, the elevation of the Black Hawk, were the pilots of the Black Hawk wearing night vision goggles?’
Then on Fox News, Duffy announced that the Federal Aviation Administration was looking into staffing at the control tower.
‘Staffing shortages for air traffic control has been a major problem for years and years,’ he said.
Duffy promised President Donald Trump’s administration would address shortages with ‘bright, smart, brilliant people in towers controlling airspace.’
