WASHINGTON — When a plane crash happens in an area as heavily populated as the Washington, D.C. region, people are bound to have seen or heard something leading up to or even the actual incident.

Ari Schulmann said he saw the explosion of the American Airlines plane and the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter when they collided. Schulmann is a reporter in the D.C. area and was driving along the George Washington Memorial Parkway on his way home.

He told The Washington Post that he saw sparks along the plane, from nose to tail. The plane was banking sharply to the right.

“I couldn’t make sense of what I saw because it didn’t seem like they were coming directly out of the plane,” Schulman told the newspaper. “They were underneath its belly and separated a little distance.”

Jimmy Mazel, 17, was at Gravelly Point Park, about 1,000 feet from Reagan National Airport’s main runway.

He told CNN, “I noticed a white light falling out of the sky, and I wasn’t sure what it was. I was very concerned to what it could be.”

Mazel said he couldn’t totally see what was happening and didn’t know it was an aircraft collision until he spoke with reporters.

Courtney Cain lives at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling heard a noise and looked outside her window when she saw a flash. She thought she imagined the crash but then it was confirmed by news broadcasts, the Post reported. She said she could see emergency crews responding when she walked to the waterfront near her home. She said not only was she shaken by the event, but her 5-year-old son was also affected. He told her, “I’m worried about the people.”

Abadi Ismail told WTTG and Reuters that he was at his home in Buzzard Point, about two miles from the crash site when he heard the crash, which was “horrendous, unbelievable, shocking.” He said he heard a “bang bang” that sounded like “a war zone,” the Post reported.

He said he saw smoke billowing from the south side of the airport.

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