The unimaginable happened to a 26-year-old woman when she was home in her Crystal City apartment on January 29, 2025. Her home overlooks Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, and she witnessed the horrific crash of an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter, although she initially did not realize what was happening.
Months later, she is opening up about that night in an interview with People.
Witnessing a Fatal Crash From Her Balcony
In the interview, published on October 20, the woman, who has chosen to remain anonymous, recalled sitting in her living room when something caught her eye. “I looked out the window and thought, ‘What are all those lights?’” she shared. She told her husband to look over, and together they saw more lights headed toward the airport. They were puzzled about what was happening.
“I’m always on edge. Sometimes you see drones checking windows to make sure everything’s secure, so I’m always looking out the window,” she said. “If I see anything unusual, I call 911. So when I saw those lights, I thought maybe it was a high-profile person landing. But I couldn’t really tell if the lights were on the water or on the tarmac.” When she checked online to see if there had been a report, she saw a headline about a crash at DCA.
“I started shaking, getting choked up, just thinking about it. It was surreal,” she recalled. “Then we turned on the news to figure out what was happening. I was already thinking, ‘Holy (expletive), should we leave the apartment? Should we go downstairs?’ At that point, you don’t know what caused it. But then they confirmed it wasn’t a D.C. police helicopter, as they initially thought. It was a military helicopter.”
Overcome With Sadness
The woman frantically called her loved ones to let them know she was safe, and she and her husband closely monitored the news to see how the events unfolded. The woman told People they kept checking from their balcony to try and “stay informed.”
Living so close to the site of the crash also made the woman fear for her own safety, as she realized it could have happened over her apartment building. The woman recalled her fears and feeling “overwhelmed.” She also said she was “overcome with sadness” to “see so many tragedies happening.” She added, “Just two weeks ago, we had the fires in California, and you’re able to shut off your TV, talk to your family about it, and process it at your own pace. But the fact that this happened right outside my window, in my ‘backyard,’ there’s no escaping it.”
What Happened That Night?
The incident the woman is referring to took place on January 29, 2025. It was a midair collision when both planes were approaching Runway 33 around 9 p.m. local time, People reports. The jet carried 64 passengers and crew members, and the military helicopter carried three soldiers.
There were no survivors, and the incident is one of the “deadliest commercial aviation accidents in the United States in more than 20 years,” CNN reports.
In February 2026, the National Transportation Safety Board released a 400-page report. Among the errors that night was an FAA failure. They state: “FAA’s placement of a helicopter route in close proximity to a runway approach path; their failure to regularly review and evaluate helicopter routes and available data, and their failure to act on recommendations to mitigate the risk of a midair collision,” CNN reports.
Woman Reveals Her Horror as She Watched a Deadly Plane Crash From Her Window