Other families will join the lawsuit later.
WASHINGTON — A lawsuit has been filed by the family of one of the 67 victims of an airliner and Army helicopter collision over Washington, D.C. on Wednesday. The suit charges the government and the involved airlines with negligence for not addressing warning signs, despite over 30 documented near collisions in the area.
Additional families are anticipated to join this initial lawsuit, which aims to hold accountable the Federal Aviation Administration, the Army, American Airlines, and PSA Airlines, the operator of Flight 5342 that crashed on January 29. This incident marks the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since 2001.
The lawsuit says the airlines and government agencies “utterly failed in their responsibilities to the travelling public.”
The lawsuit was submitted by the widow of Casey Crafton from Connecticut, who now raises their three young children alone. Her legal team also represents the majority of the crash victims’ families.
While the National Transportation Safety Board has identified multiple factors that potentially contributed to the crash, their final report specifying the cause will only be available next year.
The Black Hawk helicopter involved was exceeding the 200-foot (60-meter) altitude limit. Even at the correct height, however, there would have been minimal separation of just 75 feet (23 meters) between helicopters and planes landing on Ronald Reagan International Airport’s secondary runway. The flight data recorder revealed the helicopter was flying 80 feet to 100 feet (24 to 30 meters) above what the altimeter showed the pilots when the two aircraft collided.
The NTSB also criticized the FAA for failing to address a troubling pattern of near misses at the bustling airport in the years leading up to the accident and for disregarding concerns about helicopter activity. Additionally, investigators pointed out that overworked air traffic controllers were routinely attempting to land as many aircraft as possible with minimal separation. Any modification in these elements or other contributing factors might have prevented the fatal collision.
The lawsuit says the airlines failed in their duty to protect the passengers because they were aware of numerous incidents in which helicopters flew close to commercial aircraft around Reagan airport but failed to adequately train pilots and didn’t inform them about the helicopter routes or take other action to mitigate the risks. Other airline policies, such as allowing pilots to accept an alternative runway that intersects with the helicopter route and heavily scheduling flights in the second half of every hour may have contributed.
The lawsuit says the PSA pilots should have reacted sooner when they received an alert about traffic in the area 19 seconds before the crash instead of waiting until the last second to pull up. The lawsuit says a yellow icon appeared on the pilots’ warning system showing the relative direction and altitude of the Army helicopter.
Among the jet’s passengers were several members of the Skating Club of Boston, who were returning from an elite junior skaters’ camp following the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas. A figure skating tribute event in Washington raised $1.2 million for the crash victims’ families.
Others on the flight from Wichita included a group of hunters returning from a guided trip in Kansas; four members of a steamfitters’ union in suburban Maryland; nine students and parents from schools in Fairfax County, Virginia; and two Chinese nationals. There were also four crew members on the plane and three people in the helicopter’s crew who were killed.
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