An American Airlines jet passes as police officers escort buses carrying family members of the victims of a mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter. Source: Associated Press. Families of victims of the deadliest US air disaster since visited the crash site and divers scoured the submerged wreckage for more remains as authorities said they've recovered and identified 55 of the 67 people killed.
Divers are working diligently to locate remains as crews prepare to lift wreckage from the chilly Potomac River near Reagan National Airport as early as Monday morning, Donnelly said at a news conference. Colonel Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said divers and salvage workers are adhering to strict protocols and will halt work on moving debris if a body is found. The "dignified recovery" of remains takes precedence over all else, he said.
Portions of the two aircraft that collided over the river on Thursday β an American Airlines jet with 64 people aboard and an Army Black Hawk helicopter with three people aboard β will be loaded onto flatbed trucks and taken to a hangar for further investigation.
Donnelly, Pera and other officials spoke hours after dozens of people who lost loved ones in the crash arrived in buses with a police escort to the Potomac River bank near where the two aircraft came to rest after colliding. The jet, en route from Wichita, Kansas, was about to land. The Black Hawk was on a training mission. There were no survivors. Federal investigators were working to piece together the events that led to the collision. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the probe, didn't hold a press briefing overnight but did release a photograph showing investigators on a small boat looking at wreckage and another of them examining a flight data recorder.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Sunday said he wanted to leave federal investigators space to conduct their inquiry. But he posed a range of questions about the crash while appearing on morning TV news programmes. Were they understaffed? Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were in the helicopter. The plane's passengers included skaters returning from the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita and a group of hunters returning from a guided trip. The NTSB said Saturday that preliminary data showed conflicting readings about the altitudes of the airliner and the helicopter.
