American Eagle 5342 and the Worst Club There Is
A view of the crash site of American Eagle 5342 after the plane collided with an Army helicopter while approaching Reagan National Airport on January 29, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia. (Andrew Harnik via Getty Images)
We don’t know yet why this disaster happened. But a few of us do know what happens when our loved ones fall from the sky.
You have to figure that after the helicopter crashed into it last Wednesday, American Eagle flight 5342’s passengers had maybe two seconds of knowing what was happening before the plane hit the water and broke into pieces. To my mind, they were lucky. When the outer starboard engine of the United DC-8 my dad was flying home cut another passenger plane—a TWA Super Constellation—in half over Staten Island, it took 90 seconds for my dad’s plane to fall to earth. An excruciating minute and a half.
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