Recovery mission, investigation into Washington plane crash continue

In this image provided by the US Coast Guard, wreckage is seen in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington.[VOA] Efforts are continuing Friday to retrieve the two aircraft involved in a midair collision outside of Washington that killed 67 people Wednesday night. Investigators from multiple U.S. agencies recovered so-called black boxes from the American Airlines jet that broke into several pieces in the Potomac River after colliding with a U.S. military helicopter in the incident. Fire department officials said divers intend to "salvage the aircraft" and find additional components. The National Transportation Safety Board will gather information from the plane's flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder to find clues to the crash. There were no survivors among the 64 passengers and crew on the American Airlines flight, operated by affiliate PSA Airlines, and the three crewmembers on the Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, federal and local officials reported Thursday. Both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, just outside Washington in Arlington, Virginia, Wednesday night. Recovery operations are continuing. One air traffic controller was doing work normally assigned to two people in the tower at the airport when the collision occurred, according to an internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration. "The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic," the report said. President Donald Trump signed two executive orders Thursday afternoon, including one appointing a deputy administrator of the FAA. The other aviation order rolled back federal diversity initiatives. While signing the order in the Oval Office, Trump repeated, without evidence, his assertion that federal diversity programs may have contributed to the crash. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who joined Trump at a news conference earlier Thursday to discuss the crash, said both the airliner and the helicopter had been on "standard flight patterns" leading up to the collision. At the news conference, Trump called for a moment of silence for the victims and said every asset at the local, state, and federal level was being leveraged in the recovery mission. He said the National Transportation Safety Board was leading the investigation into the cause of the crash, which will include the FAA and a U.S. military aviation investigation unit. Trump also suggested previous administrations, led by Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, lowered the standards for the hiring of air traffic controllers and cited Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives in the federal government for that. He said he reversed those initiatives with executive orders last week. Regarding air traffic controllers, Trump said, "We want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest. We want somebody that's psychologically superior and that's what we're going to have." Trump said it is possible the helicopter crew was at fault but that would come out in the investigation. When asked how he could conclude a diversity initiative contributed to the crash, he replied, "because I have common sense." Later Thursday, a group of Black lawmakers issued a statement mourning the lives of those killed in the crash and criticizing Trump's comments that diversity initiatives may have contributed to the tragedy. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier Thursday that the U.S. Army helicopter was on an annual night training evaluation flight during which "tragically, a mistake was made." "There was sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating," he said. The two aircraft collided as the passenger jet was on its final approach and both crashed into the Potomac River adjacent to the airport. Transportation Secretary Duffy said the plane broke into three pieces and fell into about waist-deep water. At an earlier news conference Thursday, Washington Fire and Emergency Services Chief John Donnelly said about 300 first responders from local, state and federal agencies were at the scene in what he called extremely frigid, windy conditions with ice on the water. He said the wind and currents have spread the wreckage at least one to two kilometers down the river, complicating recovery efforts. At least 28 bodies, including all three soldiers who were on the helicopter, have been pulled from the river so far. The crash occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just kilometers from the White House and the U.S. Capitol. Ross Aimer, a retired United Airlines pilot and CEO of Aero Consulting Experts, told VOA that he considers Reagan National Airport one of the busiest and most demanding airports for pilots, partially because of the many helicopters that fly around it. "We call the Potomac River 'helicopter alley,'" Aimer said. Both Virginia U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner said at the news conference they have expressed concerns over the years about the level of air traffic in the Washington area but noted it was not the appropriate time to raise those issues. They also deferred further details of the crash to the ongoing NTSB investigation. Overnight, the U.S. Figure Skating organization said several members of its community, including athletes, coaches and family members, were among the passengers on the plane. "We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims' families closely in our hearts," the organization said.The Kremlin and Russian media said Russian figure skaters, including world champion couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, were on the plane. Trump said his administration would facilitate the return of their remains to Russia.The crash was the deadliest air crash in the United States since 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed in Belle Harbor, New York, killing 260 people.

Recovery mission, investigation into Washington plane crash continue

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