MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine national among the dead in Potomac River air crash

The Argentine national's 13-year-old son was, like almost half of the airliner's passengers, involved in figure skating and had attended an event in Kansas

US authorities announced Thursday that there were no survivors in the mid-air collision between an American Eagle CRJ-700 jetliner and an Army helicopter near Washington DC's Ronald Reagan / National Airport. Among the deceased was an Argentine national and his Chilean son. The airplane was carrying 60 passengers plus a crew of 4 while 3 servicemen were aboard the helicopter.

The Argentine was an accountant who graduated from the University of Buenos Aires and had moved to the United States. He was working as president of an energy company based in Arlington, Virginia, a few kilometers from the airport. He had lived for years in Chile. His son attended the Escuela Argentina on the outskirts of Washington, where children of Argentine families living in the American capital study. The man's wife and the mother of the child was waiting for them at the Reagan Airport.

The 13-year-old Chilean national had participated in a figure skating event. There were other victims from the Virginia figure skating community who had gone to Kansas for the 2025 Prevagen US Figure Skating Championships and training camp, as well as the prominent Russian couple of skaters Evgenia Shishkova (52) and Vadim Naumov (55), who had won a gold medal at the 1994 World Cup in Shiba, Japan. They also won a silver medal in 1995 and a bronze medal in 1993, plus five medals at the European Championships and two at the Olympic Winter Games. According to The Washington Post, at least 20 of the passengers were figure skaters or coaches. “These athletes, coaches and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas,” US Figure Skating, the organization overseeing the sport nationwide, said in a statement.

US President Donald Trump seized the opportunity to criticize Barack Obama Joseph Biden for the circumstances leading to the crash, citing the inefficacy of diversity policies promoted during those Democratic administrations. “There was a problem with the pilot from the helicopter's point of view,” said Trump. “I own helicopters. They can stop very quickly. He had the ability to go up or down, to turn, and the turn he made was not the right one, obviously. In fact, it did practically the opposite of what it was instructed to do,” he added. Trump also said his government had been in contact with Russian officials for the repatriation of the bodies. “It seems that the accident could have been avoided.”

“The plane was on a perfect and routine approach line to the airport. The helicopter was headed directly towards the plane for an extended period of time. It was a CLEAR NIGHT, the plane's lights were on, why didn't the helicopter go up or down, or turn? Why didn't the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane? This is a bad situation that seems like it should have been avoided. NOT GOOD!!!” Trump posted on social media.

The Black Hawk military helicopter, with three people on board, was conducting a training flight and its crew was “quite experienced,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said while District of Columbia Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services Chief John Donnelly announced there were likely no survivors. “At this point we are moving from a rescue operation to a retrieve operation” for the bodies, he admitted.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy concurred with Trump: The crash “could have been avoided,” he stressed while explaining that by all accounts there was nothing unusual about either the approach of the American Airlines plane or the flight path of the military helicopter.