An American Airlines passenger jet with 64 people on board has crashed midair into a military helicopter while attempting to land at Reagan National Airport in Washington.
Emergency services in the city are searching the nearby Potomac River after the jet plummeted into the water just before 9pm on Wednesday night.
Law enforcement sources say there are confirmed fatalities and no survivors have yet been rescued.
The bodies of 18 people have been recovered, and that divers are exploring three debris fields.
Russian figure skaters Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were on board the plane, Russian state-run TASS news agency reports, citing a source.
Shishkova and Naumov, who were married, won the world championship in pairs figure skating in 1994.
The airline has confirmed that there were 60 passengers and four crew members on Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, to the capital when the collision happened.Â
The plane is said to have split in two and is in around seven feet of water, while the helicopter is upside down and is unstable, according to the outlet.
Images captured at the scene show emergency officials on boats around what appears to be part of the fuselage and a wing jutting out of the river.Â
The Federal Aviation Authority said that the jet, a Bombardier CRJ700, collided with a Sikorsky H-60 Black Hawk helicopter while on approach to Runway 33.
Defense officials have confirmed that the Black Hawk was an Army chopper carrying three soldiers on a training flight.
