Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Emergency personnel and divers work Jan. 30, 2025, in a search-and-rescue mission on the Potomac River in Washington after American Eagle flight 5342 collided with a Black Hawk Army helicopter late Jan. 29 while on approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Sixty passengers and four crew members were aboard the jet, and three soldiers were on the helicopter. (OSV News photo/Carlos Barria, Reuters)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis offered his condolences to the families of victims and to the entire nation following a deadly midair collision between a passenger plane and an Army helicopter near Washington.

“I express my spiritual closeness to all those affected by this tragedy,” the pope said in a telegram sent Jan. 30 to U.S. President Donald Trump.

“In commending the souls of the deceased to the loving mercy of almighty God, I offer my deepest sympathies to the families who are now mourning the loss of a loved one,” the pope wrote.

“I likewise pray for those involved in the recovery efforts, and invoke upon all in the nation the divine blessings of consolation and strength,” he wrote.

An American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members flying from Kansas collided with a Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers while approaching Ronald Reagan National Airport for a landing around 9 p.m. local time Jan. 29. The wreckage plunged into the Potomac River, and search and rescue teams did not expect to find any survivors Jan. 30 given the frigid temperatures.

 

Twenty-eight bodies had been recovered, including 27 from the plane and one from the Black Hawk helicopter as of early Jan. 30, according to officials.

The Associated Press reported that passengers included a group of figure skaters, their coaches and family members returning from a training camp following the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.

The latest from america

Our country is not only in a constitutional crisis; we are in a biblical crisis.
Terence SweeneyMay 21, 2025
A Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, by Father Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinMay 21, 2025
Pope Leo XIV meets with Vice President JD Vance after the formal inauguration of his pontificate at the Vatican on May 18. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo I helped to ensure that Catholicism would outlast the Roman Empire. His name is a reminder that our faith rises above contemporary politics and temporal authority.
The Gospel parable of the “wasteful sower” who casts seeds on fertile soil as well as on a rocky path “is an image of the way God loves us,” Pope Leo XIV told 40,000 visitors and pilgrims at his first weekly general audience.
Cindy Wooden May 21, 2025