MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Numerous flights at Miami International Airport were canceled Thursday morning following a fatal plane and helicopter crash near Washington, D.C.
Airport spokesman Greg Chin confirmed to Local 10 News that about 2,000 passengers traveling to and from MIA were affected.
“I thought it was a tragedy -- I was heartbroken,” one man at the airport told Local 10 News Thursday.
“Just pray for the people and all the lives that were affected,” another traveler said. “It’s kind of a freak accident that just happens -- it’s a shame.”
There was no immediate word on the cause of the Wednesday collision, but all takeoffs and landings from the airport were halted as dive teams scoured the site and helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene in a methodical search for bodies.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the midair crash occurred before 9 p.m. EST when a regional jet that had departed from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military helicopter on a training flight while on approach to an airport runway. It occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over three miles south of the White House and the Capitol.
Reagan Airport reopened at 11 a.m. Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced. The FAA has previously said it would be closed until 5 a.m. Friday.
The first flight to depart MIA to Reagan Airport took off at 12:10 p.m.
