Surrounded by friends, family and regional leaders, a memorial was dedicated Monday at Rivergate City Park in Old Town North to the 67 victims of the mid-air collision near Reagan National Airport on Jan. 29, 2025.
To an audience of victim families, American Airlines staff and regional officials, Audrey Patel played an old happy birthday message from her husband, Vikesh Patel, who was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 5342. Behind Patel at the waterfront stands the memorial, a simple bench with the inscription, “May the 67 lives lost over these waters on January 29, 2025 be forever remembered.”
Patel said her husband would be proud of how her families, friends, colleagues and the community showed up in support in the wake of the crash.
“It feels impossible to find the words to describe the incredible man that I married, the man that I promised to love forever when I put a ring on this finger, the same ring that nine months later I hoped desperately would be among the items found at the bottom of the Potomac,” Patel said. ” Our son Niam was born after the accident. He has big brown eyes, a playful smile, and is full of curiosity.”
Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that the crash was preventable, and that not implementing NTSB’s 50 safety recommendations represent a continued and unacceptable risk to public safety.
“I mean that 45,000 flights, 3 million airline passengers travel across the national airspace every day,” Homendy said, “and yet 126 days have passed without action since we released our recommendations, 126 days of unacceptable status quo, 126 missed opportunities to honor your cherished loved ones, whose absence you’ve had to endure for much longer.”
In April, Congress passed the Airspace Location and Enhanced Risk Transparency (ALERT) Act of 2026, which addresses the safety recommendations. The act has been sent to the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Mayor Alyia Gaskins said the memorial was the city’s honor to create the space.
“We hope that this will be a space that we not only honor and recognize the lives of each of the 67 individuals that we lost on that tragic and horrific night in January of 2025 but that it will also be a space that no matter what you are feeling, you are reminded that you are not alone,” Gaskins said.
The memorial was installed by the city and the office of U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-8).
Beyer said that it took bravery for the families of victims to appear at the memorial.
“Grief only exists because we love, and it fades so slowly because our loss is so real,” Beyer said. “It takes bravery to be here today. It demands courage to move forward in life after an immense tragedy, and specifically to travel back to Washington, D.C. to this river, to this site, to the site of the most painful, probably of all your memories, and this site is a place for people, not just of the city, but of our country, to come back to again and again, to hold your family members and loved ones in your hearts.”
