CLEVELAND (AP) — Jim Donovan, the beloved radio play-by-play announcer for the Cleveland Browns and a TV sports fixture for more than four decades, died Saturday. He was 68.
Donovan retired from his broadcast career earlier this year and stepped away from his game-day duties with the team before this season while battling cancer. He had called Cleveland's games since the team's expansion rebirth in 1999.
"This is an incredibly difficult day for us and the entire Cleveland Browns organization,” Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam said. “His impact as the Voice of the Browns for 25 years is immeasurable as he touched the lives of our fans each and every Sunday with his love for the Browns and his brilliance at his craft.
“He will be greatly missed, but he cemented a legacy that will live on forever. The only thing that outweighed his love for this city and this team was the love he had for his family. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Cheryl, his daughter, Meghan, and everyone who was fortunate enough to call Jimmy family or friend.”
A Boston native known to everyone as “Jimmy,” Donovan endeared himself to Cleveland fans with his passion, sense of humor and professionalism. He was a stickler for detail, spending countless hours preparing for game broadcasts.
Donovan had recently been inducted into the Browns' Legends Club and the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame. He had been too ill to attend the events.
When he was forced to step down in August, Donovan wrote a letter to Browns fans expressing his gratitude for their support.
“I have called Browns games for 25 years. Not a day has gone by when I haven’t paused and been so proud to be ‘The Voice of the Browns,’” he wrote. “Cheryl, Meghan and I thank you for all the love, support and prayers during my rough patches. It’s like having a huge family around us. And that’s what makes the Cleveland Browns so special. You do.”
Donovan had to step away as sports director at WKYC-TV last fall for several months to undergo treatment for leukemia. He returned to the broadcast booth in time to call the team's late-season run to the playoffs.
He had been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2000 and underwent a bone marrow transplant in 2011.
A graduate of Boston University, Donovan got to Cleveland in 1985. Along with doing local reporting of the city's three professional sports franchises, Donovan also had several national network assignments and was part of NBC's coverage team at the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics.
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FILE _ Cleveland Browns radio broadcaster Jim Donovan stands on the field prior to an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013 in Cleveland. The Browns won 37-24. (AP Photo/David Richard, File)
Investigators are seeking clues into the deadly midair collision earlier this week that now stands as the deadliest aviation disaster in the U.S. almost a quarter century.
The collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport near Washington, D.C, late Wednesday killed 67 people, including more than a dozen figure skaters. More than 40 bodies have been recovered.
Air crash investigations can take months — or longer. Investigators have declined to publicly speculate on the cause of the collision.
Here's the latest:
The Army has released the names of two soldiers who died when their Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines jet earlier this week.
At the family’s request, the name of the third crew member killed in the crash is not being released at this time, the Army said.
The remains of Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, the crew chief, have been recovered and a positive identification is pending, the Army said.
The remains of Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves of Great Mills, Maryland, and of the third soldier have not yet been recovered.
The 39-year-old Eaves, one of the pilots on the helicopter, served in the U.S. Navy from August 2007 to September 2017, then moved to the Army, to serve as a Black Hawk pilot.
His awards include three Army commendation medals and three Navy achievement medals, as well as a Global War on Terrorism medal.
O’Hara had served as a helicopter repairer for Black Hawks since July 2014. He deployed to Afghanistan from March to August 2017. He also has two Army commendation medals, four achievement medals and a Global War on Terrorism medal.
Two out of the three runways at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport are closed.
That is according to Terry Liercke, vice president and airport manager.
He encouraged passengers to reach out to airlines for flight delays. Some 100 flights were canceled Friday, two days after the deadly collision.
He said he expects the runways to be closed for a week, but that the situation was “fluid.”
The runways remain closed because to prevent aircraft from taking off or landing over the crash site, Liercke said.
Fire Chief John Donnelly Sr. said crews have recovered 41 bodies and 28 of them have been positively identified.
He said next of kin notifications have been made to 18 families.
The collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport near Washington, D.C, late Wednesday killed 67 people,
The crew of a City Cruises harbor touring cruise ship were asked in the hours after the crash Wednesday night to help provide a floating space of respite for first responders and divers.
Its cruise ship provided a place to warm up, for first responders to have a warm meal or coffee, even using table linens as blankets for responders coming out of the water.
In a statement Friday, a spokesperson for Hornblower Group’s City Cruises said the crew of its ship, the National Elite, was continuing to assist searchers, and the crew of a second ship had begun plans to do the same.
The Federal Aviation Administration is significantly restricting helicopter traffic in the immediate vicinity of Washington Reagan National Airport.
That is according to an official briefed on the matter.
Wednesday’s collision between and Army Black Hawk helicopter and a commercial jet killed 67 people.
Some of the airspace has already been restricted due to ongoing search and recovery efforts over the crash site, but now agency responsible for air traffic control is indefinitely barring most helicopters from using the low-to-the-ground routes that run under or parallel to the airport’s flightpaths.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
By Zeke Miller
A riverkeeper who routinely patrols the for the environmental group Potomac Riverkeeper Network got permission Thursday to take his motorboat to the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, about two miles (3.2 kilometers) down from the crash site.
Dean Naujoks said he found that floating debris from the passenger plane had been pushed by the wind and current into a pair of shallow coves along the Maryland shore.
Naujoks recovered a piece of the interior wall from the passenger cabin that had surrounded a window, pages from a flight manual, a woman’s sweater and what appeared to be the cushion from a pilot’s seat. He turned over the items to the FBI.
“Everything is covered in jet fuel,” Naujoks said. “I’m thinking of the people these things belonged to and it’s a punch to the gut. It’s just a sad day on the river.”
More than 40 bodies have been pulled from the Potomac River as a massive recovery effort continues following the deadliest aviation disaster in a generation, a law enforcement official told Associated Press.
The recovery efforts were continuing on Friday.
The official was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
By Mike Balsamo
“It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???” Trump added in a Friday morning post on his Truth Social platform.
The comments from the president come the day after he questioned the actions of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot involved in the midair collision with a commercial airliner, while also blaming diversity initiatives for undermining air safety.
The maximum altitude where the Black Hawk was at the time of the crash — along a published corridor called Route 4 — was 200 feet (61 meters) above ground, according to Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that elevation seemed to be a factor in the crash.
The three-person Army crew on the UH-60 Blackhawk was conducting a continuity of government planning training mission at the time of the midair crash.
Military aircraft frequently conduct such training flights in and around the nation’s capital for familiarization with routes they would fly in case of a major catastrophe or an attack on the U.S. that would require relocation of key officials from the capital region.
“You need to train as you fight, you need to rehearse in ways that would reflect a real world scenario,” Hegseth said during a Friday morning appearance on Fox and Friends.
Hegseth stressed that it remained the Pentagon’s duty to also mitigate risks, while conducting such training. But he underscored U.S. forces need “to ensure, if unfortunately, there were a real world event where things needed to happen we could respond to it day or night.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says investigators have not yet recovered a key recording device from the Army helicopter involved in Wednesday’s fatal collision at Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Speaking on Fox News Channel on Friday, Hegseth noted authorities were still looking for the helicopter’s black box. Other factors in the crash, including the helicopter’s altitude and whether the crew was using its night vision goggles, are still under investigation, Hegseth said.
“NTSB investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane involved in yesterday’s midair collision at DCA,” National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson Peter Knudson said. “The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation.”
The Chinese embassy in the U.S. said two Chinese nationals were among the victims of the crash and would provide consular protection and assistance. It has asked the U.S. side to verify the information, officially inform the Chinese side and provide assistance to the families of the victims.
“The Chinese Embassy extends deepest condolences to all the victims and sympathies to the bereaved families,” an embassy statement said. It did not offer further details on the victims.
Even in peak flying conditions, experts said, the airspace around Reagan Airport can challenge the most experienced pilots, who must navigate hundreds of other commercial planes, military aircraft and restricted areas around sensitive sites.
“This was a disaster waiting to happen,” said Ross Aimer, a retired United Airlines captain and chief executive officer of Aero Consulting Experts. “Those of us who have been around a long time have been yelling into a vacuum that something like this would happen because our systems are stretched to extremes.”
Just over 24 hours before Wednesday’s fatal midair collision, a different regional jet executed a go-around maneuver when descending to land at Reagan Airport due to a military helicopter in the same area.
Flight tracking sites and air traffic control logs show the Embraer E-175 was cleared to land at the airport’s Runway 19 and advised about a helicopter in its vicinity. It executed a go-around after its automated collision avoidance system ordered what is known as a ‘resolution advisory’ to avoid nearby traffic, which put the aircraft out of proper alignment for landing. It landed safely minutes later.
The military helicopter, callsign PAT1, was advised of the descending airplane. Flight tracking sites show the plane flew roughly 1,000 feet (300 meters) above the helicopter, a normally acceptable separation.
Airline pilots are trained to respond immediately to resolution advisories, which are designed to avoid a potential mishap, but occasionally sound alarms for traffic that does not pose an immediate threat to safety.
Fatal crashes of commercial aircraft in the U.S. have become a rarity. The deadliest recent crash was in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. All 45 passengers and the four crew members were killed when the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane crashed into a house. One person on the ground also was killed.
The collision Wednesday of the Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine plane and UH-60 Blackhawk occurred over the Potomac River and the aircraft fell into the water. In 1982 an Air Florida flight crashed into the Potomac and killed 78.
Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association said the union’s accident investigation team was on the scene working with the National Transportation Safety Board, and its Critical Incident Response Program was working to support union members and the families involved in the collision.
“We mourn the loss of our friends, colleagues, and members of our ALPA and Association of Flight Attendants union family,” he said.
Ambrosi reiterated in a statement what the NTSB has said — the investigation must have the time to do its work.
“A lot of details and speculation will come out in response to this tragedy, but we must remember to let the investigation run its course,” he said.
One air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes when the collision happened, according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration obtained by The Associated Press.
The configuration was “not normal,” the report said, but a person familiar with the matter said the staffing at the air traffic control tower on Wednesday night was at a normal level. The positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks, are in the process of a shift change, or air traffic is slow, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.
In this image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, wreckage is seen in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles/U.S. Coast Guard via AP)
Search efforts are seen around a wreckage site of a deadly midair collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter, in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
In this image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, wreckage is seen in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025 in Washington. (Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles, U.S. Coast Guard via AP)
Emergency vehicles are seen across the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Emergency vehicles are seen across the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Emergency vehicles are seen across the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)