Man walking his dog finds suspected debris from January Reagan National midair collision
Items recovered from the Potomac near Alexandria will be evaluated by the NTSB and held with other wreckage from the deadly D.C. accident
A man walking his dog over Labor Day weekend discovered items floating in the Potomac River that authorities say may be debris from the deadly midair collision near Reagan National Airport in January.
Andrew Guevara told FOX 5 DC he spotted several pieces while walking on the Mount Vernon Trail in Alexandria, Virginia, and that some of the objects resembled aircraft parts, including what appeared to be a tray-table lever, a leather pouch and the curvature of an airplane seat. Alexandria police were initially notified, and the National Transportation Safety Board later took possession of the items, a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
The discovery comes roughly seven months after the January 2025 midair collision that killed occupants aboard the aircraft involved. The NTSB said it will evaluate the recovered material and store it until it can be transferred to the remainder of the wreckage from the DCA accident, the spokesperson said.
Guevara described finding the objects amid the usual river trash and said one piece “very much looked like an airplane seat.” He reported the items to police after noticing they looked distinct from ordinary debris along the shoreline.
Investigators have been working to piece together the sequence of events from the January collision, and earlier NTSB findings in that probe indicated the Army helicopter involved had been operating above prescribed altitude limits at the time of the accident. The NTSB leads federal investigations into civil aviation accidents and coordinates recovery and evidence preservation when wreckage is dispersed.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether the recovered items are definitively from the January crash. Any identification could aid investigators by supplementing on-scene evidence and providing additional physical components for forensic analysis.
Local officials at the scene and federal investigators have in past months recovered fragments and materials associated with the midair accident. The NTSB typically catalogs and stores recovered wreckage as part of an ongoing investigative record until final determinations on probable cause and contributing factors are completed.
The agency did not immediately provide a timeline for its evaluation or say when the recovered items would be formally linked to the DCA investigation, if at all. Alexandria police responded to the initial report and deferred handling of potential aircraft debris to federal authorities in accordance with standard procedures for suspected aviation wreckage.