King Charles III sent condolences Saturday to the U.S. and the families of the Washington, D.C., plane crash victims. 

“My family and I have been profoundly shocked and saddened by the dreadful news of the tragic air accident in Washington, D.C., which has led to such a devastating loss of life,” the monarch said in a memo released by Buckingham Palace and shared by multiple news outlets. 

“Our hearts, and our special thoughts, are with the people of the United States, and our deepest possible sympathy goes to the families and loved ones of all the victims.”

Charles also said he wanted to pay “particular tribute to the emergency responders who acted so quickly to this horrendous event.” 

The royal family is no stranger to tragedy. Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997, and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the late Queen Elizabeth’s second cousin, was killed in an Irish Republican Army terrorist bombing in Ireland in 1979. 

The late queen’s uncle, Prince George, the Duke of Kent, also died in a plane crash in 1942 while visiting troops in Iceland. And her first cousin, Prince William, the Duke of Gloucester, died in 1972 while piloting a plane in a race during an air show in Staffordshire, England. 

Prince Charles, seen here in 1971, learned to fly in the Royal Air Force.  (UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

The royal family is often in the air, flying to far-flung locations, and Prince Philip and King Charles both learned to fly in the military. Prince William and Prince Harry were also both helicopter pilots in the military. 

Charles had a scary incident while piloting a small, nonmilitary plane in 1994 over Scotland’s Inner Hebrides when he popped a tire and overshot a runway. 

A year later, he gave up his pilot’s license.