Authorities said Sunday they have recovered the remains of 55 of the 67 people killed in the deadliest US air disaster since 2001.
Washington, D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said at a news conference that divers still need to find the bodies of 12 more victims and are committed to the dignified recovery of remains as they prepare to lift wreckage from the Potomac River as early as Monday morning.
“Reuniting those lost in this tragic incident is really what keeps us all going,” said Colonel Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers. Portions of the aircraft will be loaded onto flatbed trucks and taken to a hangar for further investigation.
They spoke hours after families of the victims visited the crash site just outside Washington, D.C., walking along the banks of the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport to memorialise their loved ones.
Dozens of people arrived in buses with a police escort close to where an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided Wednesday, killing all 67 aboard the two aircraft. Federal investigators were working to piece together the events that led to the crash while recovery crews were set to pull more wreckage from the chilly water.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Sunday said he wanted to leave federal aviation investigators space to conduct their inquiry.
But he posed a range of questions about the crash while appearing on morning TV news programs.
“What was happening inside the towers? Were they understaffed? … The position of the Black Hawk, the elevation of the Black Hawk, were the pilots of the Black Hawk wearing night vision goggles?” Duffy asked on CNN.
The American Airlines flight with 64 people on board was preparing to land from Wichita, Kansas. The Army Black Hawk helicopter was on a training mission and had three soldiers on board. Both aircraft plunged into the Potomac River after colliding.
The plane's passengers included figure skaters returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas, and a group 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 Cpt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, was killed in the helicopter.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday that preliminary data showed conflicting readings about the altitudes of the airliner and the Army helicopter.
Investigators also said that about a second before impact, the jet's flight recorder showed a change in its pitch. But they did not say whether that change in angle meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive manoeuvre to avoid the crash.
Data from the jet's flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet (99 meters), plus or minus 25 feet (7.6 meters), when the crash happened Wednesday night, NTSB officials told reporters. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk at 200 feet (61 meters), the maximum allowed altitude for helicopters in the area.
The discrepancy has yet to be explained.
Follow us
