Deadliest Crash in More Than 20 Years Claimed The Life of a Young Flight Attendant

An African American flight attendant died on American Eagle Flight 5342. Danasia Elder was one of the four Charlotte-based crew members who were killed when the plane collided with a Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport.

The 60 passengers on the flight were also killed in the crash, and the three servicemen on the helicopter also perished.

On social media, Elder’s colleagues remembered her as a “sweet” person. Her brother-in-law described her as “full of life” and love for God.
Rebecca Cavaliere posted on Facebook, “Danasia and I were in the same training class at PSA training group last year and got to work together several times. Please pray for her family, her young children and husband at this time.”

Cavaliere added, “You never think someone you know will be in a plane crash. I’ve worked flights into DCA many times and my brain can’t comprehend how this happened.

Investigators have spent the last 24 hours on the scene, searching for the victims and clues that will help them piece together what happened. A preliminary Federal Aviation Administration report said staffing at the air traffic control tower was “not normal” when the crash happened. According to the New York Times, the controller who was “handling helicopters in the airport’s vicinity on Wednesday night was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways — jobs typically assigned to two different controllers.”

The National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the two so-called black boxes from the plane — a cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder. The two devices will be analyzed.