Airports Authority employees arrested for leaking footage of D.C. mid-air collision

Two employees of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) have been arrested for leaking a surveillance video to CNN that captured the crash between a domestic commercial airplane and a Black Hawk helicopter over Washington, D.C., according to ABC News.

The two employees have been charged with computer trespass for allegedly making an unauthorized copy of MWAA records, according to ABC News journalist Sam Sweeney.

Two videos obtained by CNN and published on January 31, two days after the aviation incident, captured close-up footage of the collision between American Eagle Flight 5342 and a U.S. Army Black Hawk.

According to an earlier report from ABC News, CNN’s exclusive footage was sourced from surveillance cameras at Reagan Washington National Airport, where Flight 5342 was scheduled to land.

Flight 5342 was en route from Wichita, Kansas, when it collided with the Black Hawk as it approached for landing. The crash claimed the lives of 67 passengers, crew members, and soldiers aboard the two aircraft.

Preliminary data from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) indicates that the collision likely occurred at approximately 325 feet. Reagan National Airport requires helicopters on that route to remain at or below 200 feet.

At the time of the crash, a single air traffic controller was managing both aircraft. The helicopter crew received two warnings about the approaching PSA jet, with the first alert issued two minutes before the collision, according to radio transmissions.

The incident is the first major commercial plane crash in the U.S. in nearly 16 years and the deadliest aviation disaster since November 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in Queens, New York, shortly after takeoff. The plane crash, which occurred just two months after the 9/11 attacks, claimed the lives of all 260 people on board and five on the ground.