A passenger is counting his blessings after he safely disembarked from a flight that was two minutes behind the fatal mid-air collision between an American Airlines commercial jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in the Washington, D.C., area on January 29, 2025.
TikToker @jamesmoyler was on an outbound flight from Charlotte headed to D.C. that was delayed due to strong winds near the destination.
"I'm not sure how that played into my fortune or not," he said of the flight delay that may have had a role in his flight averting the disaster.
James recalled that the captain informed passengers that the "skies were clear" and that "it was a beautiful night," yet the plane was unable to land after starting its descent.
"We pulled back up and started circling DC," recalled James, who noted he didn't think it unusual after being informed of the windy conditions earlier.
After suspecting something was off when his fellow passenger "started murmuring," the captain came online again and announced there had been "an incident" involving a helicopter.
Experiencing survivor's remorse, James wrote in the video's caption, "I feel sick."
You can watch his video in which he offers "Thoughts and prayers for everybody on that flight from Wichita" in the text overlay.
With fuel running out, his plane was rerouted to land at Dulles International instead of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
James continued:
"By that time people onboard have ascertained that it was a much bigger incident involving a commercial flight."
"The man next to me had a daughter who is a flight attendant with PSA who was servicing that flight from Wichita," he noted, of the AA jet involved in the mid-air collision.
There were 64 people aboard the AA flight, including world-champion Russian figure skaters Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, and three soldiers on the helicopter.
"My flight was scheduled to touch down at 8:55 and that incident occurred at 8:53. We were following them into runway 33 at DC National Reagan, so I'm feeling like I was within two minutes of death," he said, adding that he felt "dramatic" in saying that.
"I'm pretty shook. I'm grateful I'm okay, and I hope they're able to find a lot of survivors in the Potomac," James said at the time, upon landing at Dulles that night.
He said it was "mind-boggling" to him "that a Black Hawk military chopper could run into a commercial flight landing at DCA" on a clear night despite windy conditions.
James concluded with:
"Prayers for everyone who was on that plane and prayers for their families."
Many social media users saw James' experience as an example of the "burnt toast theory," a metaphorical concept involving a negative but inconsequential setback, like burning toast in the morning, that can result in positive outcomes later on.
In this situation, James' delayed flight potentially caused a chain reaction that prevented him from being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
People offered comforting words.
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The tragic incident is the nation's first major commercial airline crash since 2009. There are no known survivors.
According to CNN, experts have noted that the pilots on AA Flight 5342 and the military pilots aboard the Black Hawk "would have been used to navigating the complex airspace."
An investigation into what caused the crash is underway after Republican President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that DEI initiatives instituted under the previous Democratic administration were to blame.
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