Air traffic control received no response from a military Black Hawk helicopter seconds before it collided with an American Airlines flight going from Wichita to Washington, D.C. Wednesday evening.

As American Airlines flight 5342 was set to land at Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, air traffic control asked the helicopter pilots whether they saw the plane.

“PAT25, do you have the CRJ in sight,” the controller asked, referring to the helicopter’s call sign and the plane, a CRJ 700 jet. The tower received no response.

The controller made another attempt: “PAT25, pass behind this CRJ.”

The helicopter collided with the flight seconds later in a fiery crash believed to be the worst U.S. commercial aviation disaster in recent history. Both aircraft landed in the Potomac River, killing 67 people. There were no survivors. As responders assess the damage, publicly available audio from air traffic control is already drawing scrutiny from top U.S. officials.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declined to say much about the audio during a briefing Thursday morning. However, Duffy, an appointee of President Donald Trump, painted communication between the tower and the helicopter as standard.

“But I will say this, there was, there was communication,” Duffy said. “It was standard communication. So there was not a breakdown if that’s your question, in the communication between the military helicopter and the American Airlines flight.”

The audio, from LiveATC.net, an online source for in-flight recordings, recorded the dramatic moments in the lead up and aftermath of the crash. The audio reveals communications between air traffic controllers and a bevy of aircraft as well as the final attempt to connect with the military helicopter.

When asked about the helicopter’s flight path, Duffy said those who live in the D.C. area regularly see military helicopters fly up and down the Potomac River.

“It’s a standard path that they fly,” Duffy said. “They’re used to aircraft landing at DCA and there’s a procedure in place because this happens every day. Something went wrong here.”

The crash came after years of concerns from top lawmakers about overcrowding and close calls at DCA. During the briefing on Thursday, Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine from Virginia both said they have raised alarms in the past.

“We’ve got a very busy airspace,” Warner said, adding that the senators would ask questions at the appropriate time. “We’re trying to figure out what happened. There’ll be time for those discussions.”

Senators have been “pretty plain about our concerns, but it isn’t a good time to speculate,” Kaine said. “Right now, we have faith that the (National Transportation Safety Board) will provide the answers about this.”

The communication also immediately drew scrutiny from Trump, who took to social media Wednesday night to question the air traffic control tower.

“Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane,” Trump wrote, on his social media platform Truth Social. “This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!”

Duffy on Thursday did not address Trump’s specific concern, but reiterated that he felt the crash was preventable.

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