Officials said they believe that all those on board American Eagle Flight 5342 and the Army Black Hawk helicopter were killed.
Neither the airline nor aviation authorities had published an official list identifying the flight’s 60 passengers and four crew members by Thursday afternoon.
Officials said they believe that all those on board the commercial airplane and the Army Black Hawk helicopter were killed. The three soldiers aboard the helicopter also remained unnamed.
Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr. (D), who represents parts of Northern Virginia, said early Thursday that he had not received a manifest listing the passengers. But he said it has been suggested that a “number of the people” were from the region.
“Our hearts go out to the people who have lost their lives. We still don’t know who they are,” Beyer said to reporters at the airport. “Our local responsibility is to support those families. We expect that will be everything from … finding passports and housing, maybe burial arrangements, transportation.”
After an all-night search-and-rescue operation in frigid conditions and heavy winds on the icy Potomac, officials pivoted Thursday morning to recovery operations. D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John A. Donnelly Sr. said at a news conference that 27 bodies had been pulled from the plane and one from the helicopter. He said more than 300 rescuers responded Wednesday night to the crash.
The dead include competitive figure skaters and their companions, including retired champions, athletic coaches and family members. The crash happened three days after the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships — the most prestigious annual event on the American figure skating calendar — concluded in Wichita.
Two renowned Russian former figure skaters, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, were among the passengers, the Kremlin said. The Skating Club of Boston, where Shishkova and Naumov coached, confirmed their deaths, as well as those of Spencer and his mother, and of junior skater Jinna Han, 15, and her mother, Jin.
Spencer had been training at the national championships last week. It was the next step in the sport Spencer hoped would be his future, said his grandmother Karen Conrad.
Also among the dead were four crew members: two flight attendants, one pilot who had six years of experience and a first officer with two years’ experience, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said at the news conference.
Isom said officials are “heartbroken for family and loved ones of the passengers and crew members and also those in the military aircraft.”
“This is devastating,” he said. “We are all hurting.”
He urged any family and friends of the victims to call a designated helpline and said authorities do not yet know the cause of the accident.
Wichita Mayor Lily Wu said at a news briefing Thursday morning that officials would not share who was on the flight until families are contacted.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a recorded video released Thursday morning that an Army Black Hawk helicopter was carrying out an annual proficiency training flight “with a fairly experienced crew” aboard when it collided with the civilian passenger jet over the Potomac River.
Not all surviving family members have been notified yet, so the Defense Department is withholding the identities of the soldiers who were on the Black Hawk, Hegseth said.
The unit involved, the 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, has paused operations for 48 hours, Hegseth said.
The Defense Department is investigating the incident, and defense officials believe they will be able to quickly determine whether the helicopter was in the right air corridor at the correct altitude. “It’s a tragedy,” Hegseth said. “A horrible loss of life for those 64 souls on that civilian airliner and of course the three soldiers in that Black Hawk.”
