Surveillance footage shot from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, showed on Friday, the most clear images yet of this week’s catastrophic midair collision near Washington D.C.
Clips 12- and 17-seconds long, and since verified by NBC News, appeared to show American Eagle Flight 5342 on its descent to DCA before a the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter came into camera range from the left.
The helicopter appears to strike the underside of the plane, touching off a massive fireball and sending both crafts into the Potomac River below.
The two clips were not released by airport officials and they appear to have been filmed by a cell phone.
It’s believed all 60 passengers and four crew members aboard American Eagle Flight 5342 and three Army personnel on the Black Hawk helicopter were all killed.
The jet’s black boxes, recorders that captured data and cockpit communications, and could be key in explaining how the tragedy unfolded, .
The American Eagle flight, coming from Wichita, Kansas, carried several figure skaters, coaches and parents who had been at a development camp for elite, up-and-coming performers, .
The traveling party had been in the U.S. over the weekend. Then several of the young athletes, pegged as the next generation of elite U.S. skaters, stayed behind for this camp before departing on Wednesday.
