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Trump Holds a Press Briefing on the Aviation Disaster, Jan. 30, 2025

January 30, 2025 · The White House · 0:35:27

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump held a press briefing on the aviation disaster on Jan. 30, 2025, carried on the White House channel, opening with a moment of silence for the victims and their families. He stated the facts as the government then had them: just before 9:00 p.m. the previous night, an American Airlines regional jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three military service members over the Potomac River on final approach to Reagan National Airport; both aircraft were immediately submerged, the mission had shifted from search and rescue to recovery, and, in his words, sadly, there were no survivors.

“This was a dark and excruciating night in our nation’s capital and in our nation’s history, and a tragedy of terrible proportions,” the President said. He praised the local, state, federal, and military responders, the Coast Guard in particular, and addressed the families in Wichita, Washington, and across the country - and the Russian contingent aboard the jet - saying the nation grieved alongside them. Reviewing the tapes as he described them, he said the airliner had been doing everything right on its long-established track while the helicopter was at the same height on an angle he called unbelievably bad, with very little time left when the controller spoke - the account the investigation would test, as he presented it that morning.

Why it matters

The Jan. 30 briefing is the President’s first crisis address of the term: the casualty facts stated from the podium, the national mourning he declared, and his first on-record account of the collision - the baseline against which the investigation’s findings are measured in this chronicle.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Holds Press Briefing on Aviation Disaster” (YouTube, 2025-01-30) - official description and broadcast transcript as aired.