Airport workers arrested, accused of leaking video of Washington DC plane crash

A crane removes wreckage from the Potomac River, where a jet and a military helicopter collided on January 30 (NZT). Photo / Jabin Botsford, The Washington Post

CNN obtained footage of the deadly collision between a jet and helicopter that was apparently from airport surveillance footage.

After video appearing to be from an airport surveillance camera was shown on CNN last week in the wake of the fatal American Airlines jet collision with an Army helicopter, two airport authority employees were arrested and charged with leaking official airport records.

The video aired on Friday morning on CNN and provided a new visual angle of the crash between the jet and the Blackhawk helicopter. CNN anchor Kate Bolduan introduced the footage by saying it “appears to be surveillance video from the airport”.

Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority employee Mohamed Lamine Mbengue, 21, of Rockville, Maryland, was charged on Friday with computer trespass for “making an unauthorised copy of Airports Authority records”, authority spokeswoman Crystal Nosal said on Monday. Mbengue was booked into the Arlington County jail and released.

On Sunday, authority employee Jonathan Savoy, 45, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, was arrested and charged with computer trespass, Nosal said. He also was released pending trial.

On January 30 (NZT), an American Airlines passenger jet carrying 64 people was preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when it collided with an army helicopter, causing both aircraft to crash into the Potomac River.

The US Coast Guard investigates aircraft wreckage on the Potomac River in Washington DC, the day after An American Airlines flight collided midair with a military Black Hawk helicopter. Photo / Getty Images

The plane’s collision with the military helicopter - whose three occupants were conducting a nighttime training exercise - prompted a drastic search and rescue operation at night in the middle of winter.

First responders have been working to remove the bodies of the 67 people killed from the river, and those leading the investigation into the crash have said it will be a while before the cause is identified.

“We conduct an important safety mission where we take a very careful approach,” National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) chair Jennifer Homendy said while addressing media.

“We look at facts... and that will take some time.”

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump blamed the crash on diversity, equity and inclusion measures - commonly implemented in federal government departments - suggesting that such initiatives came at the expense of adequate air safety.

“The FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing,” Trump said, adding that the federal agency sought people ”with severe disabilities, the most underrepresented segment of the workforce" to fill positions crucial to safety management, such as air traffic controllers.

When reporters asked Trump if he was saying workplace diversity was responsible for the crash, he replied: “It could have been.”

- Additional reporting by NZ Herald