D.C. plane crash: 55 victims identified as crews recover more wreckage

Salvage crews person recovered an motor and ample pieces of fuselage and are moving to retrieve a helping from the wreckage of a commercialized airliner progressive successful past week’s midair collision adjacent Washington’s Reagan National Airport, officials said Monday.

They besides recovered much quality remains from the Potomac River, though they declined to connection specifics, reiterating lone that 55 of the 67 victims person been recovered and identified since the clang Wednesday.

Authorities person said the cognition to region the level volition instrumentality respective days and they volition past enactment to region the subject chopper involved. The clang betwixt the American Airlines pitchy and an Army chopper implicit Washington D.C. was the deadliest U.S. aerial catastrophe since 2001.

More than 300 responders were taking portion successful the betterment effort astatine immoderate fixed time, officials said. Two Navy barges were besides deployed to assistance dense wreckage.

Washington, D.C. Fire Department Assistant Chief Gary Steen told a quality briefing that officials are assured each of the victims would beryllium found.

Divers and salvage workers are adhering to strict protocols and stopped moving debris astatine times erstwhile quality remains were being recovered, said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Francis Pera. The “dignified recovery” of remains takes precedence implicit each else, helium said.

Portions of the 2 craft that collided implicit the stream Wednesday nighttime adjacent Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport — an American Airlines pitchy with 64 radical aboard and an Army Black Hawk chopper with 3 aboard — are being loaded onto flatbed trucks and volition beryllium taken to a hangar for investigation. Crews hoped to retrieve the jet’s cockpit connected Tuesday, Pera said.

The clang occurred erstwhile the jet, en way from Wichita, Kansas, was astir to land. The Black Hawk was connected a grooming mission. There were nary survivors.

On Sunday, household members were taken successful buses with a constabulary escort to the Potomac River slope adjacent wherever the 2 craft came to remainder aft colliding.

The plane’s passengers included fig skaters returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships successful Wichita and a radical of hunters returning from a guided trip. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were successful the helicopter.

Federal investigators were moving to portion unneurotic the events that led to the collision. Full investigations typically instrumentality a twelvemonth oregon more. Investigators anticipation to person a preliminary study wrong 30 days.

Wednesday’s clang was the deadliest successful the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, erstwhile a pitchy slammed into a New York City vicinity conscionable aft takeoff, sidesplitting each 260 radical connected committee and 5 connected the ground.

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Experts accent that level question is overwhelmingly safe, but the crowded airspace astir Reagan Airport tin situation adjacent experienced pilots.

The NTSB said Saturday that preliminary information showed conflicting readings astir the altitudes of the airliner and the helicopter. Investigators besides said that astir a 2nd earlier impact, the jet’s formation recorder showed a alteration successful its pitch. But they did not accidental whether that alteration successful space meant that pilots were trying to execute an evasive maneuver to debar the crash.

Data from the jet’s formation recorder showed its altitude arsenic 325 feet (99 meters), positive oregon minus 25 feet (7.6 meters), erstwhile the clang happened, NTSB officials told reporters. Data successful the power tower, though, showed the Black Hawk astatine 200 feet (61 meters), the maximum allowed altitude for helicopters successful the area.

The discrepancy has yet to beryllium explained.

On Monday, officials cautioned against premature speculation astir the origin of the clang oregon the helicopter’s altitude, oregon whether oregon wherefore it whitethorn person been traveling supra the 200-foot ceiling successful the area.

“There are each kinds of reasons that you could deviate from an altitude, you know, thing arsenic elemental arsenic a flock of birds is successful beforehand of you oregon you whitethorn deviate if you spot thing that’s an obstacle oregon different threat,” said Col. Mark Ott, lawman manager of aviation for the Army.

Investigators said they hoped to reconcile the quality with information from the helicopter’s achromatic container and planned to refine the operation data, which tin beryllium little reliable. All 5 aerial postulation controllers successful the Reagan Airport operation astatine the clip of the collision person been interviewed, the NTSB said Monday.

Associated Press writers Maryclaire Dale successful Philadelphia and Christopher Weber successful Los Angeles and videojournalist Nathan Ellgren successful Arlington, Virginia, contributed reporting.