Preliminary reports emerging from Wednesday's American Airlines crash are alluding to a possible cause for the accident.
Earlier in the week, a passenger jet - American Airlines Flight 5342 - carrying 64 people collided with a US Army helicopter Black Hawk as it was coming in to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington D.C, US.
Both aircraft subsequently crashed into the Potomac river.
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All passengers and crew onboard the jet, as well as the three soldiers in the helicopter, are believed to have died in the accident.
Efforts in D.C. to recover all 67 bodies remain ongoing, while investigators work hard to piece together the events which led up to the deadliest US air crash since 2001.
A full investigation is likely to take several months as recordings from the American Airlines plane's black box will need to be analysed, alongside flight data and interviews with Air-Traffic Control staff.
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However, a preliminary report shared by The New York Times has already shed light on a possible suggestion for the crash.
The NYT has shared information from a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) report as well as flight recordings and interviews airport staff which revealed that staffing shortages on 29 January had led to one member of ground staff in charge of directing both Flight 5342 and the military helicopter.
Staffing levels were 'not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic', the report stated.
It has also been suggested that the Black Hawk may have deviated from its original approved route, however, this cannot be confirmed until black box data is analysed.
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Suggestions of an understaffed control tower published by NYT follow numerous reports of near-miss collisions at the airport, with the most recent said to have occurred days before.
According to CNN, just days before the collision, a Republic Airways Flight 4514 arriving at airport had aborted its landing after being warned about a nearby helicopter. Claims about an understaffed Air-Traffic Control were also reported by The Washington Post.
The outlet noted that a flight from Charlotte, North Carolina had also had to abort a landing at the airport a week prior.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has weighed in on the crash, raising questions about whether or not the crash could have been 'prevented'.
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"The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport," he wrote on his social media site Truth Social yesterday. "The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time."
He continued: "It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, 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 looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!"
This update comes after the first set of victims were named, including World Champion Russian figure skaters Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, pilot of the passenger jet Sam Lilley, and 20-year-old mechanical engineering student Grace Maxwell, who was returning from attending her grandfather's funeral.
LADbible has contacted the FAA for comment.
Topics: US News, American Airlines
Brenna Cooper