AP β Families of victims of the deadliest U. Washington, D. Divers are working diligently to locate remains as crews prepare to lift wreckage from the chilly Potomac River as early as Monday morning, Donnelly said at a news conference. Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said divers and salvage workers are adhering to strict protocols and will stop moving debris if a body is found. Owing to the frigid conditions, one diver was treated at a hospital for hypothermia, Donnelly said.
Portions of the two aircraft that collided over the river Wednesday night near Reagan Washington National Airport β an American Airlines jet with 64 people aboard and an Army Black Hawk helicopter with 3 aboard β will be loaded onto flatbed trucks and taken to a hangar for investigation.
Family members were taken 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. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he wanted to give investigators space to conduct their inquiry. But he posed a range of questions on Sunday morning TV news programs. Were they understaffed? Army Staff Sgt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were in the helicopter. 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. But they did not say whether that change in angle meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive maneuver to avoid the crash. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk at feet 61 meters , the maximum allowed altitude for helicopters in the area. Sounds of impact were audible about one second later, followed by the end of the recording.
