Woman Watched 'Surreal' D.C. Plane Crash Aftermath Unfold from Her Apartment (Exclusive)

• Shakira Gonzalez Peña Dubé and her husband live in an apartment in Crystal City, Va., which overlooks Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport

• On Jan. 29, Dubé heard sirens coming from the tarmac of the airport and started to worry

• So, she and her husband decided to check their phones and discovered there had been a plane crash, and watched the situation unfold outside their home

On Wednesday, Jan. 29, Shakira Gonzalez Peña Dubé had just finished her usual nighttime routine and stepped into the living room of her apartment in Crystal City, Va., which overlooks Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

But as she made her way to the living room, something outside caught her eye. "I looked out the window and thought, 'What are all those lights?' " she recalls, speaking exclusively to PEOPLE.

The 26-year-old went over to her husband, who was sitting on the couch, and asked if he'd noticed anything unusual. She pointed out the lights and said, "Look at all those lights at the airport, and there’s more coming through the bridge, more coming into the airport. What is that?"

Living in Crystal City, Dubé says she’s used to seeing the airport lights. She adds that from the tarmac, you can see straight into her building. But this was different.

"I'm always on edge. Sometimes you see drones checking windows to make sure everything’s secure, so I’m always looking out the window," she says. "If I see anything unusual, I call 911. So when I saw those lights, I thought maybe it was a high-profile person landing. But I couldn’t really tell if the lights were on the water or on the tarmac."

Related: American Airlines Plane Crashes into Potomac River After Black Hawk Helicopter Collision: Live Updates

So, she and her husband decided to check their phones. "Immediately, we saw the headline: 'Crash at DCA,' " Dubé says, adding that neither she nor her husband saw or heard the crash. Right away, Dubé, who works as a researcher in market and economics, went out onto her balcony to get a better view of what was going on.

Throughout this all, she took to TikTok to share updates on what she saw unfolding before her eyes.

"I started shaking, getting choked up, just thinking about it. It was surreal," she says, tearing up. "Then we turned on the news to figure out what was happening. I was already thinking, 'Holy s---, should we leave the apartment? Should we go downstairs?' At that point, you don’t know what caused it. But then they confirmed it wasn’t a D.C. police helicopter, as they initially thought. It was a military helicopter."

"I called my parents to tell them I was safe and that nothing had happened near the building," she adds. "We just kept watching the news all night, going out on the balcony, and seeing boats moving through the river. It was strange, but we were trying to stay informed."

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Related: Traveler Learned About D.C. Plane Crash 20 Minutes Before Landing at DCA: 'It Was So Close' (Exclusive)

Eventually, Dubé and her husband learned that the plane crash was much bigger than initially thought, involving a collision between a regional passenger jet and Black Hawk helicopter. There were 60 passengers and four crew members on board the American Airlines jet, which had departed from Wichita, Kan., and three people on the helicopter, and none of them were believed to have survived.

After a few hours Dubé tried to sleep, but she wasn’t able to. She recalls waking up at 4 a.m., crying, thinking about what could have happened.

"The crash could have happened above the building," she says. "And also just thinking about the people on the plane, the people who didn’t make it home last night."

"I was overwhelmed, but more than anything, I was just overcome with sadness," she adds. "You watch the news and see so many tragedies happening. Just two weeks ago, we had the fires in California, and you’re able to shut off your TV, talk to your family about it, and process it at your own pace. But the fact that this happened right outside my window, in my 'backyard,' there’s no escaping it."

"Even now, as I’m talking to you, I can’t escape it," she says. "It’s literally in my line of sight. As I was lying down last night trying to sleep, I couldn’t fully rest because I kept thinking, 'They’re literally fishing bodies out of the water right outside my window.' That’s insane to think about."

Since the crash on Jan. 29, Dubé has continued to watch the scene unfold from her apartment. One thing she noticed the next morning was the difference in the scene compared to the night of the accident. "Last night, they didn’t have all those spotlights they have now," she recalls. "Then this morning, they had the spotlights, but there were also many more boats in the water, more activity that you could see."

While she and her husband haven’t spoken to any other residents in the building, she adds that on Jan. 30, the building sent an email asking residents for any video footage of the crash.

"I am wondering when they will start a memorial or something. I’ll for sure be there and bring flowers, but you kind of just feel like you can’t really do anything," she says.

"The most important thing, I would say, is just to have a little more empathy," she adds. "Lives were lost. Maybe there are people who won’t be found, and some families might never get closure. So just think about that and don’t let it get too political. Just be human first. That’s my main takeaway. We get lost in all the politics, and I get it — it’s right in our faces. But we should think about the people first."

Read the original article on People