WASHINGTON (WAVY) — It’s been nearly six months since an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army helicopter collided over the Potomac River, killing 67 people. Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board will begin a three-day investigative hearing outlining the details from the Jan 29 crash. (To watch the NTSB hearing, click here. For more information on the hearing, click here.)
Among those who perished in the Jan 29 crash were Peter and Donna Livingston and their two figure-skating daughters, Everly, 14, and Alydia, 11. The family was returning home from Wichita, Kansas, where the girls participated in an invite-only developmental camp that took place following the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
“This was a big deal,” said family member Amy Hunter. “For both girls to be selected to participate with the national team, it was a wonderful week for them.”
“It was the culmination of a lot of dreams that they had as a family,” said family member Rachel Feres.
Amy Hunter and Rachel Feres are Peter Livingston’s cousins. Rachel said Peter grew up “just through the woods” from her in northern Virginia.
“He was the cool big cousin,” she said. “He taught me how to ice skate when I was little.”
Peter played ice hockey growing up and it didn’t take long for him to get Everly and Alydia laced up and out on the ice.
“I mean, they were waddling on land and on ice, they were itty bitty kiddos,” Rachel said. “He took a lot of joy in it, and he taught his daughters how to skate when they were very young because he wanted to share his passion with them.”
“In the beginning, he was thrilled that his little girls would become hockey players,” Amy said. “But he married a brilliant, dynamic, very girly girl, lovely lady named Donna. And that was not in Donna’s plans.”
“And he was this lovely girl-dad who got into all of the things around figure skating and supporting them with their outfits and their hair,” Rachel said. “It was just the sweetest, cutest thing.”
Donna, a marketing executive at Comcast, and Peter, who worked in real estate, each had full-time jobs, but they always managed to put their girls first.
“Both parents really committed themselves to what these little girls’ dreams were,” Amy said. “Both were able to give 100% to work and 100% to their children.”
As Everyly and Alydia’s young careers began to blossom, they spent more time at Ashburn Ice House practicing and perfecting their craft. But even when the rink was closed, Peter made sure the girls had a place to skate.
“He built actually an ice rink in his backyard,” said Rachel. “He called it the Livingston Ice Plex; he put it up every season.”
Rachel and Amy said Peter’s world was his family, and that he continued to play ice hockey as an adult, but never let it interfere with the girls’ rigorous figure skating schedule.
“And they lived a great, beautiful life,” Amy said. “You knew anytime they came into a room because they were loud, boisterous, lovely, happy, funny people.”
Amy lives in northern California and says the last time she spoke to her cousin was about a week before the crash.
“Peter reached out in mid-January about the LA fires,” Amy said. “I had previously been impacted by the fires in northern California, so he was just checking in.”
She said they briefly talked about the Livingstons’ upcoming trip to Wichita. Both cousins said Peter was very active on social media and frequently posted updates about the girls’ careers.
On January 26, just three days before the crash, Peter updated his profile picture on Facebook. It was Everly and Alydia posing together in front of the ice at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
The Crash
Rachel and Amy remember seeing the initial news reports on Jan 29 about a plane crash in Washington, D.C., but didn’t learn about their beloved cousin and his family until the following morning.
“I woke up the next morning, and when I picked up my phone, I saw a message from my dad,” Rachel said. “It said, ‘call me right away, I love you.'”
“My mom is who told me that next morning,” Amy said. “I basically caught the first plane back to Virginia to be with family and to help support them and do anything we can.”
Saying the loss left a hole in the family would be an understatement.
“This branch of the (family) tree is gone,” Rachel said.
While trying to grieve and digest the heartbreaking loss, family members also began asking questions.
“Everybody asked how could this happen?” said Rachel.
“When you saw the footage of it on TV, it looked like terrorism at first,” she said.
Call for Change
In the days following the crash, Amy and Rachel began attending the NTSB family briefings to get a better understanding of exactly what happened and why.
“As they were talking about these different details, questions started coming up like, why was there a training flight going right under the path of a commercial jet flying into the most restricted and secure airspace in the country?” Rachel said.
As more unsettling details emerged, the families of those lost in the crash decided they needed to come together and take action.
“We stood up in the room and said, ‘I think this is outrageous how this is managed, I’m going to call my Senator, and I hope the rest of you do as well,'” Rachel said. “And this is kind of the nexus of how our families came together in saying that something needs to change.”
Rachel said the advocacy has been a “healing journey” for her and other family members, and it’s the best way to honor everyone lost on Jan. 29.
It’s why 168 family members related to crash victims came together to write a letter to the Secretary of the Army earlier this month. In the letter, the families criticize Army Secretary Dan Driscoll for reaffirming “the Army’s troubling stance of refusing to engage with the families of Flight 5342,” during a June hearing before the Senate Committee on Armed Services regarding the crash.
“These systems that are designed to keep us safe have gaps in them, and it takes something like this for people to look at those gaps and take them seriously,” Rachel said. “We have heard repeatedly that every regulation is written in blood.”
In March, the NTSB released its preliminary report of the crash, which included a detailed timeline leading up to the moment of impact between the two aircraft. The report also included data regarding encounters between helicopters and commercial aircraft near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) between October 2021 and December 2024.
The report stated there were a total of 944,179 flight operations during that time and that there were “15,214 occurrences between commercial airplanes and helicopters in which there was a lateral separation distance of less than 1 nautical mile (nm) and vertical separation of less than 400 ft.”
The report also revealed “85 recorded events that involved a lateral separation less than 1,500 ft and vertical separation less than 200 ft.”
“This was, unfortunately, an accident waiting to happen,” said Amy. “We’re looking at what the FAA did or didn’t do, what the Army did or didn’t do. What did the carriers know?”
There is no justice in this case, but families want someone held accountable and, most importantly, they never want to see an accident like this happen again.
Many families of those who died in the crash have already begun filing notice of claims against the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army.
“Anyone who has spent any time in the District of Columbia will see helicopters flying at low levels, mostly over rivers,” said Justin Green, an aviation attorney and former military pilot. “So when the midair collision occurred, it kind of made sense in a real horrible way.”
Green, a partner at the law firm Kreindler and Kreindler, represents 31 decedents from Flight 5342, including the Livingston family, and has filed 25 notices of claims against the FAA and Army.
“We now know that there’s a long history of near mid-air collisions in the airspace right next to Reagan National Airport,” said Green. “I don’t think enough has been done until now to address those concerns.”
Many of these concerns are expected to be outlined during the NTSB’s three-day investigative hearing, which is scheduled to begin on Wednesday. But those answers come at a cost for many family members still grieving unimaginable loss.
“I think it’s going to be a gut punch, candidly,” said Rachel. “I’m so glad that we have as many family members as we do who are going and can be there to support each other and also bear witness to what comes out of these hearings.”
Watch the NTSB hearing
To watch the NTSB hearing, click here. For more information on the hearing, click here.
