Arlington, Virginie (AP) – Families of the deadliest victims US Air Disaster Since 2001, has visited the accident site on Sunday and the divers have traveled the submerged wreckage for more remains after the authorities said they had recovered and identified 55 of the 67 people killed.
Washington, DC Fire and EMS chief John Donelly said the authorities were convinced that everything will be found. Divers work with diligence to locate the remains while the crews are preparing to lift wrecks from the cold Potomac river on Monday morning, Donelly said at a press conference.
Colonel Francis B. Pera of the body of army engineers said that divers and rescue workers adhere to strict protocols and stop moving debris if a body is found. The “worthy recovery” of remains has priority over everything else, he said.
“Gathering lost people in this tragic incident is really what makes us move forward,” said Pera. “We have teams that have been working on this effort from the start, and we are committed to getting there.”
Divers have high definition cameras with supported foods on support boats, said Pera, putting “four or five series of eyes” inside the wreck. Due to the icy conditions, a diver was treated in a hypothermia hospital, said Donelly.
Parties of the two planes that collided on the river Wednesday evening near the national airport of Reagan Washington – an American airline of airlines with 64 people on board and a Black Hawk Army Black helicopter with 3 on board – will be loaded On flat trucks and taken to a Hentaire for investigation.
Family members were taken to buses with a police escort to the bank of the Potomac river near the place where the two planes rested after colliding. The jet, on the way to Wichita, Kansaswas about to land. THE Black hawk was on a training mission. There were no survivors.
Federal investigators worked to reconstruct the events that led to the collision.
The National Transportation Safety Board did not contain press competitions on Sunday, but published a photograph showing that investigators on a small boat looking wrecks and another of them examining a flight data recorder.
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said he wanted to give space investigators to investigate. But he asked a range of questions about Sunday morning television programs.
“What was happening inside the towers?” Were in sub-effective? … The position of the Black Hawk, the elevation of the Black Hawk, were the pilots of the Black Hawk wearing night vision glasses? Asked Duffy on CNN.
The army staff sergeant. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, from Lilburn, Georgia; Chief adjutant 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, from Great Mills, Maryland; And CAPT. Rebecca M. Lobachde Durham, in North Carolina, was part of the helicopter.
The passengers of the plane included artistic skaters returning from the American figure skating championships of 2025 in Wichita and a group of hunters returning from a guided trip.
The NTSB said on Saturday that preliminary data showed contradictory readings On the altitudes of the airline and the helicopter.
Investigators also said that about a second before the impact, the Jet flight recorder showed a change in his field. But they did not say if this change of angle meant that the pilots tried to perform an evasive maneuver to avoid the accident.
Data from the Jet flight recorder showed its altitude at 325 feet (99 meters), more or less 25 feet (7.6 meters), when the accident occurred, NTTSB officials told. The data from the control tower, however, showed the black hawk at 200 feet (61 meters), the maximum altitude authorized for helicopters in the region.
The gap has not yet been explained.
AP correspondent, Julie Walker reports that the third Black Hawk driver is identified while investigators examine the altitude readings for the deadly open -air collision with a passenger plane.
Investigators said they hoped to reconcile the difference with helicopter data black box And plan to refine the tower data, which can be less reliable.
“This is a complex survey,” said the investigator in charge Brice Banning. “There are a lot of pieces here.”
Banning said that the jet cockpit vocal recorder had captured moments before the crash.
“The crew had a verbal reaction,” said Banning, and the flight data recorder has shown that “the plane starting to increase its land. The impact sounds were audible about a second later, followed by the end of the recording. »»
Complete surveys generally take a year or more. Investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.
NTSB member Todd Inman said he had spent hours meeting the families of the victims.
“Some wanted to cuddle us. Some are just crazy and angry, “said Inman. “They are simply injured. And they always want answers, and we want to give them answers. »»
More than 300 stakeholders participated in the recovery effort at a given time, officials said. Two naval barges were also deployed to lift heavy wrecks.
Duffy said on Sunday in Fox News said that the Federal Aviation Administration was studying staff in the Reagan airport control tower.
Investigators said there were five controllers in service at the time of the accident: a local controller, a ground controller, an assistant controller, a supervisor and a training supervisor.
According to a FAA report obtained by the Associated Press, a controller was responsible for helicopter and plane traffic. These tasks are often divided between two people, but the airport generally combines them at 9:30 p.m., while traffic slows down. On Wednesday, the supervisor combined them earlier, what the report called “not normal”.
“Endowment shortages for air traffic control has been a major problem for years and years,” said Duffy, promising that President Donald Trump’s administration would respond to shortages with “brilliant and intelligent and bright people in Towers controlling the airspace “.
With the nation already in mourning, a The air ambulance crashed Friday, in Philadelphia, killing the six people on board, including a child returning home in Mexico of treatment, and at least one on the ground.
Also Friday, FAA helicopter trafficking has strongly restricted around Reagan airport, a few hours after Trump wrote on social networks that the helicopter had stolen more than the permit.
The Wednesday crash was the The deadliest in the United States Since November 12, 2001, when a jet has hit a New York district just after takeoff, killing 260 people on board and five on the ground.
Experts point out that plane trips are extremely safe, but the crowded airspace around Reagan airport can even challenge experienced pilots. __
Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed the reports.
