The US government has admitted that its actions helped cause a deadly plane crash in January 2025 that killed 67 people, including several figure skaters.
Court filings released Wednesday show the government accepted partial responsibility for the Jan. 29 collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a US Army helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. ESPN News Services first reported the filing, which came in response to a lawsuit from a victim’s family.
“The government’s lawyers said in the filing that ‘the United States admits that it owed a duty of care to plaintiffs, which it breached, thereby proximately causing the tragic accident,’” ESPN reported.
The accident was one of the deadliest aviation disasters in the US in decades. It deeply affected the figure skating world, since many of the victims were returning from the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas.
Court Filing Outlines Government Role In The Plane Crash
According to the filing, an air traffic controller failed to follow required visual separation procedures on the night of the crash. The government also pointed to the actions of the Army helicopter pilots. Lawyers said the pilots failed “to maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid” the passenger jet.
Scroll to continue reading
latest in General news
At the same time, the government rejected claims that air traffic controllers, Army leaders, or FAA staff were generally negligent before the crash. Even so, it admitted that a failure to meet safety duties directly led to the accident.
The crash deeply affected the figure skating community. Six victims were connected to the Skating Club of Boston. They included young skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane who even shared an image from that doomed flight while it was taking off , their mothers, and their coaches, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov. Shishkova and Naumov were former world champions and Olympic competitors.
Get notified of the most viral General stories via Google!
The parents of US skater Maxim Naumov also died in the plane crash. Maxim is one of the top skaters in the country.
Other victims were linked to skating clubs in Northern Virginia, Washington, Delaware, and the ION Figure Skating Club.
Families are still grieving as legal cases continue. The government’s admission strengthens their claims and raises new concerns about flight safety near one of the country’s busiest airports.
