In his final remarks before the tragic DC plane accident, the captain of the doomed American Airlines aircraft expressed his excitement about spending time with his family on a trip the next week.
During an interview from his Brooklyn, New York, home, Jonathan Campos’ sobbing uncle, John Lane, shared his last words.
“Campos, 34, was ‘living his dream’ as a pilot and even played with toy planes as a boy,” Lane said.
According to Lane, “He was such a good kid,” DailyMail.com reported.
“I spoke to him as he was boarding the plane. We spoke for 10 minutes. I can’t believe it. He sounded really happy. “
“He was looking forward to going on a cruise next week on the Icon of the Seas, the cruise ship.”
“Ten family members were going to fly to Florida to take the trip with him. It was going to be a big celebration.”
Just before 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Doomed Flight 5342, which was carrying 67 passengers and crew members, was approaching Reagan National Airport when it collided in a huge inferno with an Army Black Hawk helicopter 400 feet above the Potomac River.
Campos, 29-year-old First Officer Samuel Lilley, who had recently been engaged and was only months away from being promoted to captain, was one among the dead.
Among those deceased were flight attendants Ian Epstein and Danasia Elder.
Lane told DailyMail.com that Jonathan Campos “loved” his profession and had played with toy planes as a youngster.
Lane said, “He loved flying, it was his dream. He was living his dream. He played with toy planes when he was a kid. He wanted to qualify to fly bigger planes. We’re just sick right now. His mother isn’t doing well.”
In order to arrange for his body, Campos’ mother has left her local home and is already in Washington.
According to Lane, the pilot resided in Orlando with his girlfriend and enjoyed playing football and basketball.
He attended flying school six years ago after growing up in a modest apartment in Brooklyn’s working-class neighborhood of Coney Island.
“He did so well with his life, we were all so proud of him.”
“We’re all devastated. It’s such a loss.”
Campos went to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in New Jersey for his college education.
He studied aeronautical science before graduating in 2015, and the institution said in a statement that its team was “deeply saddened” to learn of his passing.
“His family, as well as the families and loved ones of everyone affected by this tragic accident, are in our thoughts and prayers,” the statement read.
According to the Epic Flight Academy in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, Campos also studied there and obtained his qualification as a flight teacher.
The ‘Black Box’ recorders from both of the airplanes involved in the crash—the greatest aviation catastrophe to strike the United States in 16 years—have been recovered by the National Transportation Safety Board, the accident investigation agency.
Over 40 bodies have been recovered from the frigid waters as a result of the startling death toll, and police divers are still searching for the other bodies.
Among the young American figure skaters killed in the accident were Spencer Lane, 16, Brielle Beyer, 12, and Jinna Han, 13.
The jet also carried the well-known Russian skating duo Vadim Naumov, 56, and Evgenia Shishkova, 53.
Kiah Duggins, 30, a civil rights lawyer and former beauty pageant competitor, was on her way back to Washington after seeing her mother in her hometown of Wichita.
She was a Harvard Law School graduate and an intern in the White House during the Let Girls Learn campaign of former First Lady Michelle Obama.
On the doomed trip back to school was Grace Maxwell, a 20-year-old student at Cedarville University in Ohio studying biomedical engineering.
In a sad turn of events, a whole family of four from Virginia was destroyed.
After 11-year-old Alydia and 14-year-old Everly competed in the 2025 US Figure Skating Championships, the Ashburn family was returning home from Wichita, Kansas.
Together with their mother, Donna, and father, Peter, the two girls perished in the terrible disaster on Flight 5342.
Along with fellow soldier Ryan O’Hara, who was designated the flight’s crew chief, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Eaves has been revealed as the pilot aboard the Black Hawk Army chopper.
A preliminary internal FAA investigation and insiders have begun to expose the catastrophic failures that preceded the aviation catastrophe.
According to The New York Times, one air traffic controller was left to manage planes and helicopter traffic that night, which ought to have been a separate responsibility.
According to the report, those jobs are typically completed by two workers between 10 a.m. and 9.30 p.m.
Since there is less traffic at the airport later in the evening, the responsibilities are usually consolidated and delegated to a single individual after 9.30 p.m.
However, it has been claimed that a supervisor permitted one air traffic controller to leave work early by combining those responsibilities prior to the designated cutoff time.
The FAA report said that staffing configuration “was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic”.
Why the supervisor permitted the employee to leave work early on Wednesday night, right before the airborne accident, is still unknown.
Additionally, it has come to light that the Army chopper that was involved in the collision—which was transporting three soldiers—may have veered off course from its authorized flying path.
According to sources, the pilot deviated from the path, was half a mile off track, and was over 300 feet, which is higher than the permitted 200 feet.
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