Secretary of defense says mission was for evacuating government officials in the event of a catastrophe or attack

Top US officials have said the military helicopter that collided with a passenger jet over the Potomac River on Wednesday was on a training mission for evacuating members of government in the event of a catastrophe or attack.

The US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, told Fox News that the helicopter was performing a “continuity of government” drill designed to help pilots “rehearse in ways that would reflect a real-world scenario”. Hegseth declined to elaborate, saying he didn’t want to get “into anything that’s classified”.

Trump’s pretense as king has quickly devolved into his strutting insult routine. He will always exploit tragedy to display his self-regard

Outrages of Donald Trump’s rancid character topple over each other so rapidly and in such volume that they long ago became banal. His vileness is unremarked upon, his rottenness unworthy of further commentary. Trump’s offensiveness is an unspoken assumption. Rules and norms exist for him to break. More, he is rewarded. Meta, after discarding monitoring of hateful content and disinformation on Facebook, is paying him $25m in tribute to settle his lawsuit against it for having banned him after his attempted coup on January 6 and his potential “instances of violence” and threats to “public safety”. All is forgiven, if not forgotten. There are no gates; there are no gatekeepers. Let the bad times roll.

But Trump crashed through a new boundary after an army helicopter collided with an airliner about to land at Washington’s Reagan National airport on 29 January with the loss of 67 lives. While police and firefighters were still recovering bodies from the Potomac River, before any report from the National Transportation Safety Board and evidence was fully gathered, Trump went on TV to spew blame against enemies within and to deflect responsibility.

An American Airlines passenger jet collided with a military helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan national airport near Washington DC. Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center shows two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to conjoin in a fireball. The American Airlines Flight 5342 departed from Wichita, Kansas, according to the FAA. According to American Airlines’ website, the jet has a capacity for up to 65 passengers

• American Airlines plane and military helicopter collide at airport near Washington DC