A year after the midair collision that claimed 67 lives, News4 sat down with two divers who spent days underwater on a mission for the families of the victims.
D.C. fire department diver Stephen Hater and D.C. police diver Andrew Horos were part of the first teams on the water after a passenger jet and Army helicopter crashed over the Potomac River the night of Jan. 29, 2025.
By most accounts, the first few hours on the river were chaotic. First responders knew they had to move fast, in case there were survivors.
Lt. Andrew Horos, of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Harbor Patrol Unit, said he saw quickly that “it was a very horrific, violent collision and that there were likely no survivors.”
An unmistakable odor blanketed the area.
“It was the very thick smell of, very strong smell of jet fuel in both the area where the helicopter was and where the passenger jet plane was,” he said. “You could smell it from a pretty good distance away and then, unfortunately, every victim that we were covering had a very strong scent of the jet fuel as well.”
‘Nothing in this career prepares you to see what we saw that night’
D.C. Fire and EMS Rescue Diver Stephen Hater described the scene below the surface.
“It was eerily clear. You could see 10 feet visibility, which is relatively unheard of in the Potomac,” he said. “We believe a lot of factors culminated to that, but it was something that those of us that had been diving in the river prior were not ready for, when we had 10 feet of visibility, crystal clear water.”
“What we saw, nothing in this career prepares you to see what we saw that night. It was kind of almost something out of a horror movie. Your worst nightmare and you’re seeing it firsthand,” he said.
Divers found figure skates, a charm bracelet
Both men spent days in the water recovering those who died, as well as debris. They said they tried to bring closure to people who lost loved ones.
“We’re really there to try to recover as much stuff for the families as we could, and that effort lasted, like I said, months – just trying to find every little thing we could for those family members, whether it’s an earring, wallet, watch,” Horos said.
Many of the crash victims were young figure skaters returning from a competition with their families.
“It makes me feel great having small children around that age, just thinking I would want everything that I could, whether it was a pair of skates – competitive figure skating – a pair of skates or the last lanyard of the last competition that they competed in,” he continued. “It was definitely special and important, and every time any member would recover a watch, an earring, bracelets. My daughters make me small bracelets and they’re very special to me. So, recovering a charm bracelet or a Taylor Swift bracelet really felt good for us, for all the members, for myself.”
News4 Transportation Reporter Adam Tuss sat down with Jennifer Homendy, the head of the NTSB, as she reflected on the midair disaster over the Potomac River one year ago.
Hater also said he felt an obligation to the victims’ families.
“A lot of us on the team felt that the drive that, you know, the families are already experiencing enough of a loss. We need to bring everyone back, to provide their families the proper way to pay respects and proper way to be remembered,” he said. “And that was my personal, along with several other members of the team, like, this is our job now: Bring everybody home back to their families.”
Both men said they will carry the memory of that night with them forever.
“What happened that night was an absolute tragedy. It’s inevitable to happen to see tragedies, but I hope to never see something like that magnitude again,” Hater said.
“It’s a good feeling to know that, again, we did everything we could,” Horos said. “I thought that we recovered the victims as quickly as we could and loved ones didn’t have to think for weeks and weeks that their loved ones, or the family members didn’t have to think, that their loved ones were down in that dark cold water.”
Almost a year since the midair collision near Reagan National Airport that killed 67 people, the daughter and sister of two victims honors her family through music. News4’s Aimee Cho spoke with her.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
