NEW ANSWERS: Why American Air Flight 5342 CRASHED into Helicopter

By now, I’m sure you have seen the news of the horrific American Airlines crash into the Blackhawk Helicopter in DC.

There are no survivors, all 60 aboard the airplane are dead as well as everyone aboard the Blackhawk Helicopter.

But now I want to advance the story and dig down into what may have really happened….

Because at face value, with all of our technology aboard the planes, aboard the Blackhawk, and within Air Traffic Control, plus just the visual look out the windows of the pilots aboard both craft, it seems almost impossible that this could happen.

At face value, we’re all thinking exactly what President Trump was thinking when he posted this:

It looks like the Blackhawk just flies right into the plane, like a bug flying into a light on a hot summer night.

How can that happen?

I have some possible answers for you that I think might really help explain things.

First, this morning we got a new angle of the crash that shows things much more clearly and reinforces all the questions I listed above — how can this possibly happen?

BREAKING: New Angle of the American Airlines Plane vs. Blackhawk Crash In DC

Now let's dig into some answers, and for that I'm going to go to my friend MeetKevin who always does excellent work doing deep dives into things like this.

But especially on this topic, because he recently got his pilot's license and is soon going to sit for his instrument rating test, so he's uniquely suited to break this down from the perspective of the cockpit.

His analysis gave me a lot of new information I didn't previously understand, and while I hate seeing the number "33" featured so prominently in this crash, perhaps there's no grand conspiracy here at all....perhaps it's just a series of several very unfortunate events.

I'm going to show you two videos, and I will put a full transcript below each video.

The first video was from last night, as initial information was first coming in.

I think it really gives some great information and lays a good foundation of things to consider here that might not be clear at face value, especially if you're not a pilot.

Then in the second video, we have a LOT of new breaking information out this morning including actually communication recordings between the Helicopter and Air Traffic Control that potentially explain exactly how this may have happened.  Plus night vision goggles.

Here is Video #1:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

MeetKevin: oh boy oh boy oh boy we've got another aviation accident and this time it's in the capital Washington, D.C. This is absolutely terrible. What's going on? It looks like a regional jet, possibly with as many as 68 passengers, has collided with a military helicopter. I'm going to go through some of the evidence that we have right now.

It looks like, first and foremost, that the plane that was involved was an American Airlines plane. This is what we currently believe, waiting to verify all of this information. The FAA did say, though, that this is PSA operating flight 5342 for American Airlines. It departed a Kansas, and it was a Bombardier regional jet which collided midair with a Sikorsky H-60—that is the Blackhawk helicopter.

Apparently or potentially either a police helicopter or a military helicopter, it's unclear exactly which it is. The first Reuters report was that it was a military helicopter, some people say it was a police helicopter. Multiple agencies here responding from three different states in the area. You've also got Ted Cruz announcing that there are indeed fatalities. Donald Trump has been briefed on this, and they're working on a response right now to save as many lives as possible. Search and rescue continuing right now.

But let's take a look at what appears to be the potential traffic data, and then I want to talk to you a little bit about the airport and give you my opinion on potentially what happened. So first, let's take a look at this. This is sort of an ADS-B exchange flight path here. You could see this happen at about 1:147 or 1:148 Zulu time. You can convert that to your own time frame. It's about maybe 50 minutes or so as of the time of this recording.

Anyway, what you're going to look at here is you're going to look at the plane right here, and this right here—which is actually a helicopter showing up as a plane right here—and that appears to be the impact site right here. So if we sort of naturally extend the path that this plane is on, and we have some webcam footage of the actual accident as well, if we extend what the plane is doing, the plane was destined to land at this airport.

It looks like the plane was expecting to land on Runway 33. That's because you'll see this—I'll zoom in on this in just a moment—but I want you to see that lineup for Runway 33, and then pay attention to where that helicopter is coming from. It's coming from the park area, and it's flying right over the final approach region here of the airport. I'll talk about my opinions in just a moment about what's going on here.

You also do, in fairness, have an Air Force base right here, so you certainly would expect to have multiple controllers. You've got a military Air Force base right here, you've got a commercial airport right here, so it's unclear if this helicopter was coming in for a landing here, but it actually looks like—and I'll show you the webcam footage—that the plane likely descended on top of the helicopter on its approach to Runway 33 right here. A little bit of a lag in how those end up updating on that footage there.

But let's take a look at what that setup looks like here and then try to break down what's going on. The airport is currently shut down via the temporary flight restriction in the NOTAM—fully shut down—and it's expected to be shut down until at least another hour here, but likely longer now. It's just listed until 8:00 p.m. PST. You could see that there on the side. I'm going to get that webcam footage up for us as well.

But it does look like this PSA Airlines flight departed at 5:22 p.m. If this is indeed the correct flight—it appears to be, based on what the FAA is saying—but please verify this. It looks like this flight departed 5:22 p.m. Central Time and crashed at approximately 8:48 p.m. Eastern time. You can see here it indicates landed 6 minutes early, but it, as we know, did not indeed land.

Let's take a peek here and then try to understand or surmise what potentially happened here. So it looks like the helicopter was here at East Potomac Park, and helicopters don't have runways. They can use a runway to land, but they usually use taxiways to land or they just hover essentially straight down. Then we have what is at least listed as an Air Force base here. In fact, you could see here this is the Marine One hangar, so this appears to be a military helicopter pad right here. You could see the squares with the multiple different pads there for helicopters to land.

And then you could see right here Runway 33. And so if we go into ForeFlight here, we'll be able to do a little bit of understanding of potentially what could have happened here. So we can see that Runway 33 is currently closed there on the right—I'm blocking that a little bit there, let me remove myself. We can see that runway is closed right now. We can also see ForeFlight indicating that was, at least presently, the best runway to use for wind purposes. And it uses a left-traffic-style approach, which means that this—we'll take a screenshot of this here—and then we'll draw out what this potentially looks like.

So stand by one moment while I pull that up. But this is devastating, and we're going to give you an example here, using a model of a plane, of what I think may have gone down. This is obviously just breaking, so there is always the possibility that as new information comes out, what actually happened differs substantially. And it's unclear how many people have tragically lost their lives here, so we want to be very respectful and careful here.

But let's take a look at this and then I'll show you the webcam footage. So take a peek here. This right here is what a left traffic would have looked like for a jet. You would have come in for a final like this, and typically you would have likely an extended base over the Potomac River. We could even go into ForeFlight to see what kind of approaches we had, if they were using an actual instrument approach or if they were just proceeding to this airport visually.

So in other words, they'd come in, and then you'd make your left turn. Obviously, it wouldn't be on this 90-degree angle like this, it'd be more like this. Now, this is very important because as that plane turns and turns towards the runway, it is really, really difficult to see what is below you. And that, I think, is where the oopsy happened here, in addition to obviously an air traffic control problem.

So let's use this one for a moment—it's a little up close here. So consider a plane for a moment. When a plane makes that turn and then lines up for that runway, it's coming down and descending like this. It's really difficult to see what's right below you. You're really relying on air traffic control to tell you, "Hey, you're clear to land." And actually, let's go to this camera—there we go. All right, so if you're coming in to land like this, and there's a helicopter coming in from below, you might actually land right on top of that helicopter without even realizing they were there in the first place.

Now, this is an air traffic control issue in part. It's also potentially a pilot oopsy doopsy, given that pilots also have traffic on not only their consoles, but I personally, as a pilot, keep an iPad with the traffic up all the time. But there's a lot going on right before landing, and you also generally don't expect a helicopter to all of a sudden enter the active runway final flight path.

So let's take a look at that webcam footage, and you'll be able to get an idea of what this looks like and how what I describe might be exactly what happened. This right here appears to be departing traffic. I want you to look right here at this being what looks like the landing traffic right here. You can see how low that plane is setting up on that runway, and in just a moment—there it is—you see the explosion of a collision between that plane and a helicopter.

Now, both of them then plummet to the ground. This is now the zoomed-up version, and right here is what I want you to pay attention to. You see those two dots right there? Those appear to be the positioning lights or the strobes of the helicopter. Note, there is another strobe right here which appears to be a tower or some kind of beacon on a tower. But what I want you to see right here is you could see, as I'm moving left and right, those two circles on the sort of the left of the really bright circle. You could see how this plane here is clearly taking off—this is the one coming in for the landing Runway 33—here's the tower beacon, here's the helicopter, and you'll see that helicopter is below this landing traffic.

So that landing traffic just came out of a left turn. So in other words, if you're coming out of a left turn, the helicopter's, let's say, coming from this direction—sort of where you are at the camera—and they're turning this way. Well, look at how the cockpit is; it's actually away from where the helicopter is coming from, right? You come in for that turn, then you level out. Okay, great, but now can you see what's below you? Not really, because look at where the positioning of the windows are. It’s very, very, very difficult to see what's below you in a plane.

So what happens here? Well, as you go forward, those two flashing lights we're paying attention to do what I believe is fly directly under that plane and helicopter. Also, you're usually not expecting people to land on your head, so you're kind of not doing this to look for traffic. Again, there should have been air traffic control from both the military facility and the airport here. Maybe there was a comms problem, right? Maybe they’re on different frequencies. We'll speculate about that in just a moment. But here you go—there's that last flashing light you see right there, that's just the strobe, and there it is, right under that plane, there it is, and then the collapse.

This is really tragic. Obviously, this just happening now. But my take is, in terms of how this could have happened, it is entirely possible that the helicopter was on an entirely different frequency, because there would be a tower frequency that the airplane was on with, "Hey, you know, whatever this tail number was here—I’ll pull that up again just so I have it handy—clear to land Runway 33," and they would have read back, "Hey, flight number," or they probably would have responded with, "American 5342, clear to land Runway 33, number one," right? So they're like, "Okay, cool, we're clear to land, we're coming in, we're doing our landing checklist—do we have the gear down, are we buckled up, are the flight attendants sitting down, we're coming in for our landing."

And so they're probably on a frequency isolated with DCA (KDCA), the D.C. airport, whereas that military helicopter is probably going to go land where Marine One is, and for some reason they're going on, they're taking a different path inside, or I have no idea what they're doing, but they intersect with the landing pattern for left traffic Runway 33. And when they do that, rather than landing up here where that base is and that facility is for some reason, they extended under this flight path here, and that's where you have the kaboomskis. And it's bad.

Reuters now reporting that 60 passengers were scheduled to be on that jet, which means you've probably got two pilots—uh, 60 passengers—call it two stewardesses, you’ve probably got about 64 passengers on that jet, and then of course I would guess at least two, probably three individuals on the Blackhawk, likely military helicopter. But anyway, for some reason that military helicopter—who is likely on, you know, we'll just, for the sake of making this simple, call it frequency 300, okay, so we'll put them on frequency 300, and we'll put them on frequency, I don't know, 125, okay, just for giggles—they over here probably on a digital frequency talking to their air traffic control, and DCA is over here talking to them on an analog frequency, say 125 or something like that.

And you probably don't actually have these two pilots having any means of talking to each other. So with the exception of actually looking at their ADS-B broadcasters, they wouldn't know that traffic is there. And usually there's so much to do in these jets, they usually listen to air traffic control and assume air traffic control is watching out for them. Now, I always say it's bad to assume air traffic control is watching out for you, but I've been with maybe seven different flight trainers before, and they've all told me, "Oh no, that's ATC's job," and I'm like, "I don't know, man, I panic when it comes to seeing traffic." But then again, the problem is you don't expect a helicopter that's here to end up under your flight path either, and again, visually, you just wouldn't have been able to see them right after that turn, as you're turning out of that turn, you basically landed right on top of them.

So to me this is (A) a failure of the helicopter not to stay away from that flight path, and (B) an air traffic control failure on both the part of the military and the part of DCA. I do not believe that this is the fault of the plane. Obviously, more details are going to come out, and we're just speculating based on a webcam video here, so there's a lot of risk of incorrect information here. This is just where I'm starting my collection of thoughts from. I want to watch this happen or unfold as closely as possible, and I hope as many people as possible can be saved because this is yet another tragic aviation disaster in America, which is heartbreaking. It is absolutely heartbreaking.

Anyway, thank you so much for watching. We'll see you in the next.

And here is Video #2:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

MEETKEVIN:
A lot of critically important new details out about the Blackhawk helicopter that crashed into the American Airlines flight just last night, killing approximately 67 individuals with no survivors. In this video, we'll go through some Air Traffic Control data and some looks at approach plates and different angles of this incident. We'll hear exactly what was going on in just the moments before the crash. We'll also talk about possible causes, as we did last night.

In this video, since I'm also going to be covering financial news, I will also be talking about the disaster that was the UPS earnings release this morning, and who actually a big beneficiary seems to be of this. Hint: it’s another stock. Caterpillar’s not doing that great, and of course on the channel we did cover Tesla, Meta, and Microsoft yesterday, but we will, in honor of the “deep seek week” drama, cover more of the deep seek drama.

We've also got to talk about the European Central Bank and some PCE data that we got this morning, but first: at 8:47 p.m. yesterday, a flight—the American Airlines flight that we’ve all now unfortunately heard about—crashed. It was American Airlines Flight 5342 operated by PSA Airlines, and it is expected that absolutely everyone died.

Now the question is, why did a Blackhawk helicopter with three crew members crash into the American Airlines flight? Well, we do now know that the helicopter flight was on a training flight and took off from around the area of Langley, Virginia, and followed the Potomac River down, which is not uncommon—that a helicopter would follow either a highway or a river.

[The Blackhawk Training Flight]

They did have a Blackhawk training flight. We do now know that the helicopter had three crew members. It’s unclear if there were any other personnel on board. The military is confirming that this was a training flight, and that they did have night-vision goggles on board. It's unclear if they were actually being used at the time, and that there were no senior U.S. military officials on board.

It’s worth noting that having night-vision goggles can narrow your field of view substantially, down to about a 40-degree view, which is a lot less than you would otherwise have. If you look at a Blackhawk helicopter, you can see there’s actually quite a bit of visibility out of the side windows, but those goggles can limit peripheral vision dramatically.

In fact, it’s so common to see helicopters following the Potomac that people post videos on X (formerly Twitter) showcasing helicopters flying over the river at a low level during the same time planes are taking off. Take a look at this shot—then you get a little bit more perspective of the area there and what it looks like. It is an interesting sight, to say the least.

Here you go. This is an example of a flight taking off, and you can see two what appear to be Blackhawk helicopters here, which could carry as many as about 30 crew members or individuals. You can see how shallow and marshy the Potomac is here. You get ice there, and at some levels it’s 7 feet deep, at some levels it’s only waist-deep.

So thanks, Kyle, for that shot there. It’s not very deep water, which is also unfortunate because, well, frankly, whether it was water or not might not matter, but when you’re falling out of the sky at about 350 feet—which is the elevation it appears the accident took place at—you’re going straight down from a 30-story building. That is quite a drop.

But what’s also very important here is: why did the helicopter not maintain separation from the plane if the helicopter, on Air Traffic Control data, indicated they had the plane in sight? What I’m going to do is play for you the Air Traffic Control data, and then I’ll show you what may have been on the air traffic control screens at the time of the incident.

I want you to listen closely to these comms right here. Pat (Priority Air Transport) 25 is the call sign we hear. This is the military flight. Let’s listen, then I’ll show you what might have been on the radar.

[Air Traffic Control Comms & Radar]

Pat 25: “Do you have the CRJ in sight?” Okay, that’s the Bombardier model of plane here, the CRJ—I believe it was a 700.

Pilot: “Affirmative, request visual separation.”

Basically, the pilot is saying, “Hey, I got them. We’re good. We’re not going to crash into them. Are you good if we just stay visually separated?” That’s a way of saying, “Hey, Air Traffic Control, I got him in sight; I’ll handle the separation. You cool with that?”

That’s as opposed to Air Traffic Control saying, “Yo, Pat, turn left heading X, Y, Z to get away from that other plane,” or “Descend, climb,” giving some form of collision-avoidance instruction. Because the pilot said, “Hey, I’ve got visual separation,” the assumption is that everything’s under control.

Likely, on the air traffic control screen, you could see a collision advisory flashing. Alarms would be going off at Air Traffic Control. Here’s the runway, and you can see them coming closer together. I want you to notice these altitudes: Pat is at 200, looks like they’re actually climbing, and the CRJ700 is at 400, descending.

Then you end up with them both at 300. The helicopter is coming up, and the plane is coming down. If they have night-vision goggles on, how the heck are they supposed to see each other? But wait a minute—why, then, did the helicopter pilot say, “Hey, I got him in sight”?

Well, probably because he had the wrong bird in sight. Shout-out to the individual who texted me this morning, a military pilot who suggested much the same: that the helicopter had the wrong plane in sight.

[The Wrong Bird.]

Take a look at this. This is departing traffic right here. This is our incident aircraft, right? The helicopter’s going this way. What if it’s possible he’s like, “Oh yeah, I see that plane taking off. We’re good. We’re so good. Why don’t you let us handle the separation?”

Oops. Watch that again, and then I want to give you another profile view and show you the approach plate. Here’s the helicopter coming in, probably sees this one taking off because from a certain angle it looks like it’s right in front of them. But in reality, from the helicopter’s perspective, that plane might actually be behind them. The helicopter might be saying, “Yeah, we got the plane in sight, no problem, request visual separation,” but they actually have the wrong plane in sight.

At night, if you have night-vision goggles on, your field of view is narrowed substantially. When you see those big forward-facing lights on a plane, that’s from the plane’s landing lights that only point forward, not sideways.

So from the side, all you really see on a plane is a little green or red position light, and maybe a flashing strobe. The landing lights are the giant ones in front, but they’re pointed forward. It’s almost purposefully designed not to shine sideways, to avoid blinding others.

We look at this footage, and we think, “How could you miss that giant light?” But those giant lights point forward, so from the helicopter’s side angle, you’re only seeing a tiny green or red position light and maybe a strobe.

So let’s visualize that with an iPad drawing, or imagine it. The helicopter is traveling, climbing slightly, and trying to get around the airport’s traffic. He sees one plane taking off, thinks that’s the plane they were told about, calls in, “Air Traffic Control, we have it in sight, request visual separation.” Meanwhile, the CRJ they really needed to be watching for was higher up, on final approach, descending right onto them.

If they were using night-vision goggles, that drastically narrows the peripheral vision. The plane might have been off to the left side—potentially on the trainee’s side—so the more experienced pilot on the right side might not have actually seen it. It’s more and more looking like a training accident, a failure of visual identification.

Let’s look at the RNAV approach for a moment, because that might help us understand.

[The Approach Plate (Flight Path)]

This is the RNAV approach for Runway 33. You have an initial approach fix where you start getting ready to descend and prepare for landing. Then you have a Final Approach Fix, after which you basically go visual. Air Traffic Control clears you to land.

You descend through all altitudes to land on the runway. There really wasn’t a floor after that Final Approach Fix (called NZI) that the plane shouldn’t go below. You’re just trying to follow a typical 3-degree glide slope, turn, and go land on the runway.

They use the river so you can avoid the 440-foot obstacle over here and the 260-foot obstacle there. Then you land. Of course, the helicopter, as we saw, came from over here and collided with the plane.

There is another angle as well we can take a look at. It’s just terrible—absolutely terrible. I think this will just go down, unfortunately, as a tragic training accident.

This was the flight path of the helicopter. It’s possible they did not have their ADS-B broadcasting, but they still should show up on radar. Let’s talk about that from the perspective of a pilot and what I’ve learned.

[A Massive Aviation Problem (Possible Cause)]

First, I want to disclose that I’m a newer pilot. I’ve got about 150 or 160 hours with about 400 landings. I’m working on my instrument rating, and I’ve got my check ride coming up in a few weeks. One of the things I find with trainers, just worth talking about, is that typically the most experienced trainers end up going on to do missions at the military or go fly at the airlines.

You usually don’t have the most experienced people training you because of the way aviation works. I regularly hear people tell me in training, “Oh, don’t worry. When you’re flying your Final Approach Fix on those approach plates, Air Traffic Control is maintaining separation. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Every single time, I say, “Well, guess what, I’ve got seven kids, and I’m worried about it.” So what I have is an iPad, a phone, a Sentry, and obviously all of the G3000 electronics in front of me on the flight deck.

I like to do this: if Air Traffic Control says, “You’re number three to land behind the Cessna that’s number two,” I’ll click on the traffic I think is that plane and ask, “Just confirming I’m following tail number PE,” or whatever. They confirm, “Affirmative, you’re following so-and-so,” and I say, “Got it, I’m number three.”

I do that on instrument approaches as well because I don’t want any of these little triangles on my screen coming anywhere close to me. Now, is it possible the helicopter didn’t even show up as a triangle? Yes, because Blackhawks don’t have to transmit ADS-B data. But they usually show up on radar, and that data is rebroadcast.

Still, nobody is trained to look at traffic on final, because in training they always say, “Once you’re cleared to land, don’t worry about it.” But that, to me, is a big failure in the aviation community.

Beyond that, you then have a helicopter that is misidentifying which plane they’re talking about. This is how you end up with a disaster, a cluster-F, and a lot of dead people. It’s absolutely miserable. I’m very saddened by this, and hopefully a lot of people can learn from it so we never end up seeing this again.

Anyway, that’s it for the aviation disaster. My heart goes out to the families that are affected—apparently a lot of younger skaters were affected, like ice skaters training for the 2030 Olympics. Just so sad, so sad.

Now, this morning, we got some U.S. GDP numbers for Q4. They came in a little lighter than expected, at 2.3% versus 2.6%. Nobody cares; it’s above 2%, so nobody’s going to care. Initial claims were better than expected at 207 versus 225. Continuing claims were down from last week, when they had spiked over 1.9 million for a moment, so that’s actually a good thing.

Then you’ve got the European Central Bank cutting rates by 50 basis points. People are still cheering that Microsoft and Meta didn’t lower their CapEx more. I think this is misguided. I’ve talked about it before; I’ll keep talking about it. It’s way too early to expect to see CapEx adjustments here.

We’ll watch this. SoftBank is now apparently in talks to invest 15 to 25 billion into OpenAI. It’s unclear if those talks started before “deep seek”—probably—and I don’t know if they’ll actually go through with that after this drama, but that would make them the largest investor in OpenAI, larger than Microsoft at 14%, though they’ll have a lower stake because Microsoft got in at a lower valuation. After deep seek, that valuation is probably a lot lower.

Regarding Donald Trump and tariffs, apparently, according to Bloomberg and what people are hearing on the Hill, the Trump team is still trying to “figure out what to do.” New tariffs have been threatened but they haven’t arrived yet. Trump has given a deadline of February 1st for 25% in tariffs on Canada and Mexico, 60% on China, but he’s already walked back the China ones after talks with Xi Jinping.

We’ll see what happens on February 1st. The Treasury Secretary, Bassent, is focused on a tax package. Honestly, I don’t think Trump is really going to follow through with a lot of these tariffs; they mostly seem to be a negotiation tool, which is kind of exactly what a lot of people were saying before he became president. We’ll keep an eye on it.

UPS missed revenue by 35 basis points. Their CapEx came in at 35%, though, versus expectations. Their deal with Amazon apparently expects Amazon to lower volume with them for smaller parcels by up to 50% in the second half of 2026.

Who seems to be winning from this, by the way? Because it’s not UPS stock—they’re down 14% in pre-market. It actually seems to be Walmart. Look at Walmart; it’s up 76% over the last year, at all-time highs literally right now. Apparently Walmart’s monthly active users were up 11.7% in December, with monthly active users basically going straight up. You can see that data compiled by Sensor Tower and Goldman Sachs.

It seems like Walmart is winning that whole trade-down consumer idea. Then you’ve got Caterpillar, which also missed revenue for Q4 by about 3% and guided lower this Q1 than last Q1. Their stock is down 4.2%.

Obviously, we’ve also got movement on Tesla, still up nicely in the pre-market, about 4%, though it’s been a little volatile.

[Stock Earnings Disaster.]

So with that, let’s get into the Daily Wealth of the day. I want to touch on a little story I got from Jack, then the dad joke of the day. Actually, I guess it’s less of a story—it's more of a tip from Jack.

Jack’s tip this morning was that you should not say bad words. If you do YouTube, don’t say bad words so more people can watch. Also, don’t say bad words in other jobs. If you get mad, get away from the conversation or get away from the problem. Also, respect your teachers even if they’re not perfect themselves, and always be kind and honest.

Well, that was very nice, Jack. Then we’ve also got a dad joke of the day, which is: I told a joke on a Zoom meeting. Nobody laughed. It turns out I’m not even remotely funny.