An internal memo says Arlington firefighters who recovered remains from the deadly Potomac midair crash turned to alcohol and sank into depression after senior leaders left them without real support.
On the evening of January 29, 2025, American Airlines flight 5342 collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Everyone on both aircraft died. The toll stood at 67 people, 64 on the plane and three on the helicopter, in what was described as the deadliest domestic crash in more than 20 years.
More than 90 agencies answered the call. More than 20 Arlington County Fire Department personnel joined the multiagency recovery. Nearly two years later, an internal memo to Fire Chief David Povlitz lays bare what those crews say came next: critically inadequate personnel support, alcohol use, sleepless nights, family strain, and depression. The Daily Mail reported the memo’s findings after WTOP first broke the story and The Washington Post also obtained the document.
The captain who wrote the April memo did not say much about the work itself. Crews spent hours in freezing conditions handling dismembered bodies, pediatric victims, and severely mutilated remains. Senior officers, the memo states, provided virtually no meaningful support.
"Despite the profound trauma of spending hours in freezing conditions handling dismembered bodies, pediatric victims, and severely mutilated remains, senior officers provided virtually no meaningful support,"
the memo told Chief Povlitz.
Senior leaders stayed away from the hardest ground
The memo charges that no deputy chief, battalion chief, or other senior officers showed up at the primary recovery location during the operation. Afterward, check-ins from leadership were limited and random. A wellness K9 worked overnight and met firefighters as they returned from the site. Members of the department’s Peer Support Team were present that evening. Those early gestures, the captain wrote, did not make up for what followed.
Several Arlington responders have turned to alcohol, cannot sleep through the night, and face family strain and depression, the memo reports. Crew members first used workers’ compensation therapy sessions. Continued care now comes out of their own pockets. Employees stayed quiet earlier, the memo says, because they feared professional retaliation.
"This combination of absenteeism, inadequate mental health support, lack of transparency, and failure to recognize sacrifice has deeply damaged trust and left many responders feeling abandoned by the very organization they serve,"
the captain wrote.
Public praise once cast the department’s response as effective and its employee support as meaningful. The memo rejects that picture. “In reality, the response was marked by significant leadership gaps, operational confusion, and a profound lack of sustained support for those who performed the most traumatic work,” it states. When members who carried out one of the department’s most traumatic duties feel they cannot speak openly without risking their careers, the memo adds, that points to a toxic cultural issue that must be fixed.
Department praises crews while citing insurance barriers
Captain Jamie Jill, the Arlington County Fire Department’s public information officer, shared a statement with the Daily Mail. She said first responders performed admirably in unimaginable conditions and brought closure to families and friends of the passengers. At the same time, she pointed to a wider problem: demand for mental health care is high across the country, while low insurance reimbursement rates make it hard for providers to stay open on private insurance alone.
"Arlington County Fire Department first responders performed admirably in unimaginable conditions in the aftermath of the midair collision above the Potomac River, bringing closure to the families and friends of the passengers,"
Jill said. She also stated that “persistently low insurance reimbursement rates have made it difficult for mental health providers to operate and rely on private insurance reimbursement as their sole means of payment.”
The Daily Mail contacted Chief Povlitz for comment. The memo’s author remains unnamed in the reporting. Exact counts of how many responders turned to alcohol or received formal diagnoses are not laid out beyond the memo’s description of several personnel facing those problems.
NTSB put the FAA’s route design at the center of the crash
The National Transportation Safety Board’s final report assigned probable cause in plain terms. It cited the FAA’s placement of a helicopter route in close proximity to a runway approach path, the agency’s failure to regularly review and evaluate helicopter routes and available data, and its failure to act on recommendations to reduce midair collision risk. The board also pointed to overreliance on pilots to spot other aircraft without full regard for the limits of see-and-avoid flying.
That same evening, an air traffic controller warned the helicopter crew to watch for the plane. The crew confirmed seeing it moments before the collision. Multiple government failures stacked on top of one another. Related problems at the same airport have drawn scrutiny before, including cases where Marine One radio warnings never reached the Reagan National tower ahead of a near-miss with a passenger jet.
Families have pressed for answers in court. The estate of victim Casey Crafton filed suit. Fox News reported that U.S. government attorneys admitted the FAA violated visual-separation procedures and that Army pilots failed to maintain vigilance and safe separation. In the filing, the government stated: “The United States admits that it owed a duty of care to Plaintiffs, which it breached.” Attorney Robert Clifford said the families remain deeply saddened and anchored in grief from the loss.
A separate action detailed by the New York Post accused American Airlines, PSA Airlines, the FAA, and the U.S. Army of negligence and systemic failures that made the crash predictable and preventable. Clifford called the crash of American Eagle 5342 predictable, preventable, and the needless loss of 67 lives. Dailey Crafton, the victim’s brother, said their lives were shattered in a moment and that Casey was betrayed by systemic disregard for safety. Families have banded together, filed claims, and pushed for congressional air-safety reforms.
Army investigators have also examined the same collision. Coverage of that work described cascading safety breakdowns in the Black Hawk crash that killed 67 near Reagan National. Oversight questions around the airport have not been limited to one night. The FAA and NTSB have examined other procedural lapses there, including a probe into a Marine One safety breach after a commercial jet left Reagan National without the required hold.
Trauma on the river, silence back at the station
The recovery work fell to frontline crews while the policy failures sat higher up the chain. The memo’s account is straightforward. Senior officers were absent from the hardest ground. Support after the fact was thin. Therapy that started under workers’ compensation shifted to personal bills. Fear of retaliation kept people quiet. Alcohol, insomnia, depression, and family strain filled the gap.
Jill’s statement praises the crews and points to insurance reimbursement rates as a national barrier for mental-health providers. The memo’s charge is narrower and harder: the department that sent more than 20 of its own people into that freezing recovery did not sustain them afterward. Trust, the captain wrote, was damaged. Members felt abandoned by the organization they serve.
Military aviation accidents keep testing emergency systems and the people inside them. Fatal rotary-wing crashes elsewhere, including an incident in which two Fort Hood soldiers were killed in an Apache helicopter crash near Salado, Texas, leave the same pattern of sudden loss and long cleanup. The Potomac collision was larger in scale and closer to the capital’s main airport. The human cost did not end when the last remains left the water.
The NTSB put route design, review failures, and ignored recommendations on the FAA’s doorstep. Government lawyers later admitted a breach of duty. Lawsuits name airlines, the Army, and federal agencies. None of that automatically repairs what the Arlington memo describes inside one fire department: leadership gaps on the worst night, then thin follow-through for the people who handled the bodies.
First responders do the work the public never wants to see. When agencies fail on safety upstream and then leave the cleanup crews to pay for their own care and keep quiet about it, the failure runs from the airspace to the station house. Taxpayers fund both the routes and the departments. They should expect competence at both ends, and leaders who show up for the people who still have to sleep at night after the river goes quiet.
