D.C. plane crash is among country's deadliest in decades
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The deadly midair collision near Reagan National Airport outside D.C. Wednesday marks the deadliest air carrier crash in the U.S. since November 2001, when a passenger jet crashed in Queens, New York killing 265. Another 265 were killed in airplane crashes during the 9/11 terror attacks.
The big picture: Fatal crashes of commercial aircraft in the U.S. have become uncommon in the 21st century, as regulations have increased, technology has advanced and safety measures and controls have improved.
Driving the news: An American Airlines passenger jet with 64 people on board collided late Wednesday with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers.
- Both aircrafts went plunging into the Potomac River. There are no known survivors.
Zoom out: The last deadly aircraft incident with a mass casualty was in 2009 near Buffalo, N.Y. All 49 passengers and crew on Colgan Air Flight 3407 were killed when the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane crashed into a house. One person on the ground also died, bringing the death toll to 50.
- Prior to that, a Comair plane crashed while taking off from Lexington, Kentucky, on Aug. 27, 2006, killing 49 people onboard.
- The deadliest of the last quarter century in the U.S. was when 265 people died onboard in four plane crashes on Sept. 11, 2001. They were among nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks.
- Two months later, on Nov. 12, 2001, an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area in Queens, N.Y., killing 265 people.
Zoom in: Prior to 9/11, Wednesday's crash is the worst air tragedy in the D.C. area since Jan. 13, 1982, when Air Florida Flight 90 crashed, killing 78 people on board.
Go deeper: D.C. plane crash: What we know about the collision as all passengers feared dead
