The decision was made two days after the tragic collision of American Airlines passenger plane with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, D.C.
American Airlines announced on Friday that Flight 5342 would cease to exist for the carrier.
The airline confirmed to PEOPLE that “Flight AA5342 will not be used for any future American Airlines flights.” The decision comes two days after a plane with that ID tragically collided midair with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, D.C. The 5342 ID would have been used for each American flight on the same Wichita-to-D.C. route.
“Service between Wichita, Kansas (ICT) and Washington, D.C. (DCA) is currently scheduled to operate [Friday night] as AA5677,” the airline said.
The crash on Jan. 29 took the lives of 67 people. On Thursday, Jan. 30, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials echoed their previous position that the crash had no survivors. There were 60 passengers and four flight attendants on the jet, and three soldiers on the army aircraft.
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The airline’s decision to remove AA5342 follows a common industry practice in which airlines retire numbers after tragic events.
American Airlines retired the flight number 77 after it crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, per the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial. Eight years later, Air France Flight 447, an international passenger flight departing Rio de Janeiro for Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean; its number was retired, per ABC News. In 2014, Malaysia Airlines retired the number of flights that went missing, MH370 as well as MH371, per The Hill.
An exception is Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 800. The number was retired after an aircraft exploded minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York in 1996. TWA was acquired by American Airlines in 2001. However, flight number 800 is not an operational American Airlines flight today and is not scheduled to operate on any future American Airlines flights.
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Among the victims of the recent collision in D.C. are 14 ice skaters, a number of parents and students from Fairfax Public Schools in Virginia, four union members, four flight attendants and three U.S. Army soldiers.
D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John A. Donnelly said during a news briefing on Friday, Jan. 31, that the bodies of 41 victims have already been recovered from the water, while 28 of those victims have been positively identified. He confirmed that the aircraft wreckage would need to be removed from the Potomac River to recover more victims.
