The families of those who perished in the Washington, DC, plane tragedy are highlighting significant ‘systemic failures’ during recent National Transportation Safety Board hearings. The crash involved a mid-air collision between a US Black Hawk and a commercial aircraft, resulting in the deaths of 67 passengers and three soldiers.

Peter Livingston and his wife Donna, both 48, and their two young daughters Everly, 14, and Alydia, 11, were aboard American Airlines Flight 5342.

Among the victims were the Livingstons and 28 members of the US Figure Skating community. They were on their way back to DC after a national skating development camp in Wichita, Kansas, while the military helicopter was conducting training.

The collision happened around 8:47 pm on January 29, over the Potomac River, as the plane was nearing its landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Tragically, no one survived the incident.

The fatal crash has become the deadliest US air disaster in more than two decades.

Friday marks the third day of investigative hearings by the the National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB questioned witnesses from the Federal Aviation Administration and Army officials about the actions of the air traffic controllers.

NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told the victims’ families – many of whom were present – that they ‘are working diligently to make sure we know what occurred, how it occurred, and to prevent it from ever happening again,’ CBS News reported.

At one point, Homendy became visibly upset when she said, ‘Every sign was there that there was a safety risk’ in the airspace.

Amy Hunter and Rachel Feres – both cousins of the Livingstons – decided to watch the hearings from their homes in California and Colorado, respectively, as they wanted to be near their families during this agonizing time.

‘As cousins who lost an entire branch of our family on January 29, we knew this week’s NTSB hearing would be painful. 

‘But nothing could have prepared us for the depth of systemic failure it revealed, from oversight gaps to operational breakdowns that remain unaddressed,’ Hunter and Feres told the Daily Mail on Thursday.

‘Each hour of testimony made clear that this crash was not a mystery, it was a preventable tragedy. Peter, Donna, Everly and Alydia should still be with us – so should the other 60 people aboard Flight 5342 and the three soldiers on the Black Hawk.’ 

Feres and Hunter have traveled to Washington several times over the last six months to advocate for safer skies.

‘The hearing shined a necessary light on agencies that failed to meet their responsibilities: an FAA that didn’t safeguard its own airspace, and an Army that sent soldiers into the nation’s busiest flight corridor underprepared for night operations,’ they said.

‘This isn’t just about our family. It’s about every traveler, every service member, every parent putting their child on a plane. We all deserve better than this.’

Erin Applebaum, aviation accident attorney and partner at Kreindler & Kreindler, which represents the families of 31 victims on Flight 5342, issued a statement to Daily Mail.

‘What’s been revealed so far is both troubling and heartbreaking,’ the statement reads. ‘It’s become abundantly clear that this crash was the inevitable result of years of unheeded warnings about outdated equipment, unacceptable risk-taking, and a systemic complacency so egregious that it bordered on negligence.

‘In that environment, a tragedy of this magnitude was a foregone conclusion. We’ve learned just how fragile the margin of safety had become at DCA and how many people, including the airlines, knew about the risk while doing nothing to mitigate it. It’s truly shocking.’

Both cousins are part of a group of 115 other people who have lost loved ones on Flight 5342- each with a different goal in mind.

Hunter said some folks are there primarily for support and understanding while others are focused on a memorial or got involved to become an advocate for change.

‘Everybody’s in a different phase of this journey, and everybody has different emotional capabilities,’ she said. ‘Some of us step in and others step out, but there’s a lot of different paths that we’re all going through.’

Feres spoke about growing up with her cousin Peter in Northern Virginia. A lifelong hockey fan, he was the person, along with his sister and aunt, who taught her how to ice skate. 

‘He’d take my hands and he’d skate backwards, which I thought was just the most amazing talent anyone could possess, and he’d bring me around the ring,’ she recalled.

Peter was a successful and prominent realtor, and his wife was a beloved Comcast executive. The pair met in 2006 and married in 2009 before starting their family.

Feres recalled that when she became a mom herself, Peter gave her a piece of parenting advice she will always cherish: bring them into the things that you love.

After all, that’s what he did with his own children. 

The doting dad built an outdoor ice-skating rink in his backyard where he taught his daughters how to skate.

Both children fell in love with figure skating and were on their way to becoming professionals.

The family had been coming home from the 2025 national championships and a national development skating camp in Kansas when the tragic crash occurred.

Eleven skaters between the ages of 11 and 16 were on the flight, including parents and skating coaches, two of whom were 1994 world championship skaters and spouses (Vadim Naumoy and Eugenia Shishkova), USA Today reported.

Hunter shared that Everly was a single skater while Alydia was a doubles skater.

‘The week before they died was a big week for the family – both girls were able to participate in Kansas City in the development camp,’ Hunter said.

‘It was a culmination of dreams for them, and both parents were there… they can never be replaced. We miss them terribly.’

For now, both women are honoring their cousins’ legacies by advocating for them, knowing that Peter would have done the same.

‘For me, this is what I do so that I am not angry,’ Feres said. 

‘I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to be bitter. I want people to get on an airplane and feel safe and I want to know that I have honored the legacy of Peter and his family by making things better for everyone.’

‘I think it is the systems that put them there that failed. What do you do with this emotion when four members of your family are gone?’ Feres said.

‘Just a bad decision here, a bad decision there, and it culminated in a horrible moment.’

She continued, saying that everyone should be able to trust that when their loved ones board a plane, they will reach their destination safely. But, they learned, that’s not currently the case.

‘The people who are operating our air system, our aviation system to keep us safe – what is revealed is that isn’t what’s happening,’ she added.

‘We heard very quickly after this that aviation regulation is written in blood. In other words, somebody has to die for us to make the system a little bit safer, and that is a horrible way to make decisions – a horrible way to approach this – because life is so precious.’

Hunter has described the last six months as a ‘rollercoaster’. 

She and Feres commended the support they have received from the NTSB and expressed confidence that they would be doing a thorough investigation. 

‘What we do know is that it was an environment of unacceptable risk and it involved a lot of different systems that failed, and it wasn’t just a one time thing.’

The day before the hearings, Hunter told Daily Mail she was ‘very nervous’ about ‘what they were going to hear and what they were going to see’. 

‘There’s just a lot of emotions and trauma tied up in these next three days,’ she said.

Both women hoped to get more transparency and clarity on a range of topics including the safety management systems that are in play at the FAA and its child agencies, the technology and equipment used, the Army’s risk assessment practices, and the data the FAA has in its possession.

Feres calls the NTSB ‘professional’ and ‘compassionate’, adding that ‘they’ve been willing to walk us through what is a very technically dense investigation and the steps they’re taking’.

When she spoke with the Daily Mail, she was preparing for their first communication with the US Army since the first week after the crash.

‘We’re interested in understanding what interim steps the Army has taken to improve aviation safety outside of what the FAA has mandated in the DCA airspace, with respect to those helicopter routes that were were so dangerously designed and ADS-B (an advanced surveillance technology) being off.’

She also wanted to learn more about their coordination with the FAA. ‘We’ve seen some other reports of near misses between commercial aircraft and military aircraft since the collision, which kind of boggles the mind.’

Feres questioned if the FAA analyzes their data and pointed out other near-misses that took place after January 29.

‘We heard there had been 15,214 close proximity events in a very short amount of time – 85 for which were extremely close. We are looking forward to learning more about the safety management systems that are in play at the FAA.’

Hunter shares the same curiosities. 

‘What did the carriers know? Were the pilots that went for both the Army and the carriers – were they sufficiently prepared to be flying in this complicated airspace? 

‘Did they sufficiently have enough information to make educated and safe decisions with our family members lives?’