American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army helicopter collided near Washington D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29, sending the two aircraft into the Potomac River and killing the 67 people who were aboard both aircraft. It is the deadliest U.S. air crash in more than two decades.
Striking images showing the recovery operation have been published by many major news outlets and shared on social media platforms. One widelyviewed image appears to show the wreckage in the river, with first responders standing on top of the plane, but people in the comments are wondering if the photo is real.
Emerging now🚨🚨NO survivors in the Washington plane crash, according to DC’s fire chief. Rescue efforts have now shifted to a recovery operation.🥹💔#planecrashpic.twitter.com/OzisYHFU66
— Debug 🥵✨ (@254Debug) January 30, 2025
“Emerging now NO survivors in the Washington plane crash, according to DC’s fire chief. Rescue efforts have now shifted to a recovery operation,” this X post says. It was also shared by a Spanish news agency on Instagram.
THE QUESTION
Is this image showing the plane wreckage real?
THE SOURCES
- VERIFY analysis of the image
- RevEye, a reverse image search engine
- Associated Press photos from the Jan. 29 crash
THE ANSWER
No, this image showing the plane wreckage isn’t real. It was made with artificial intelligence.
WHAT WE FOUND
A widely shared image claiming to show the wreckage from the American Airlines is AI-generated and doesn’t accurately depict the real scene. Several inconsistencies, including the type of aircraft and distorted details, indicate the image is fake.
Notably, the plane shown in the fake image is not the same model that crashed. The American Airlines aircraft involved was a Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-700, which is a twin-engine regional jet that has rear-mounted engines, a long fuselage and a slightly tapered nose. The front window panels, the width and length of the plane and the lack of engines in the fake image prove it’s not the same plane that crashed.
Officials say the plane’s wreckage was found upside down in three sections in waist-deep water, which contradicts the scene from the fake image. Photos taken by Associated Press journalists show what the wreckage site actually looked like – the plane isn’t in one piece like it is in the fake image and boats were used in the recovery, not vehicles.
AI-generated images often have misshapen or distorted features. Numbers, letters, textures and background details are often distorted or over-stylized. AI experts call these details “artifacts” – clear indicators the content is AI-generated.
In this image, the vehicles seen in the background appear to be floating on top of the water, rescue boats and emergency vehicles are misshapen, and the text on the uniforms is warped and illegible. One first responder’s arm is unnaturally distorted, also the size of the people compared to the plane aren’t to scale.
What really happened
The CRJ-700 out of Wichita, Kansas, was preparing to land and the UH-60 Black Hawk carrying three soldiers was on a training exercise, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The skies were clear.
Air traffic controllers cleared the plane to use a shorter runway, and moments before the crash, a controller confirmed with the helicopter pilot that they had the jet in sight. A final radio call instructing the helicopter to wait for the jet went unanswered before the two aircraft collided.
The wreckage was found submerged in the river, with the jet breaking into three sections. The NTSB recovered flight recorders, and the crash remains under investigation.
Among the passengers were members of the Skating Club of Boston who were returning from a development camp that followed the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita. Victims included teenage figure skaters Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, the teens’ mothers and two Russian-born coaches, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won a 1994 world championship in pairs skating.
The victims also included a group of hunters returning from a guided trip in Kansas, nine students and parents from Fairfax County, Virginia, schools, four steamfitters members of a steamfitters’ local in suburban Maryland and two Chinese nationals.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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