Weather issues not likely to be a factorpublished at 10:10 Greenwich Mean Time
Simon King
BBC weather presenter and meteorologist
While the cause of the crash is still unknown, the moment there is an aircraft incident near an airport, a detailed weather observation is taken.
The investigators will then use this information to determine if the weather had any impact.
We know the crash happened at around 21:00 local time (02:00 GMT), and while there were clear skies with a visibility of more than 10 miles (16km), there were some gusty winds at that time around Washington DC.
The wind was coming in from a west-north-west direction with a speed of 16mph (26km/hr), gusting up to 26mph (42km/h).
The American Airlines flight will have been using Runway 33 (direction 330º) which means it would be near-enough landing into the wind (290º), as an aircraft would normally do.
However, there is still a crosswind component which is something pilots are aware of in any landing.
In this case, the crosswind at the surface was 10mph gusting to 17mph (16-27km/hr). This is well within the limits of the aircraft and ability for a pilot to land in, so I’m sure there would be have been no weather concerns on approach.