A man was walking his dog along the Potomac River in Alexandria on Saturday when he spotted what appeared to be an airplane seat in the water. It came just over seven months after a passenger jet and Army helicopter crashed in midair nearby, killing everyone on board.
Andrew Guevara said he was walking when he saw something unusual.
”I noticed something peculiar in the water. Again, there’s always trash and other things that you can’t identify, but for some reason this one looked extremely peculiar,” he said.
He saw what appeared to be a plane seat, with a tray table knob visible on the back, resting on the shoreline.
“Knowing what happened back in January – the plane crash that happened – I just kept on thinking it was what it was. But I didn’t want it to actually be that,” Guevara said.
He wasn’t immediately sure what to do. He started googling information on American Airlines seats.
“It seemed matching. The red American Airlines color and the blue, the rest of the seat was blue,” he said.
In the weeks after the Jan. 29 crash, authorities shared a number people should call if they found wreckage. But so long after the disaster, Guevara scrambled to figure out who to call.
Alexandria police showed up and took the seat. The seat was then sent to D.C. police, who told News4 they are transferring the seat to the National Transportation Safety Board for confirmation that it came from American Airlines Flight 5342. The NTSB and American Airlines did not immediately respond to inquiries.
Guevara said what he found rattled him.
”It was shocking, I guess. I would say shocking but more so surreal, even knowing that something like that could just wash up so long after,” he said.
He said he hopes he helped in some small way.
“Knowing that that was a seat where a tragedy happened, I think it was important to get it to the right people,” he said.
He said he’ll keep a close eye on the water in case he can help again.