A team of divers has recovered one of the two flight data recorders – the so-called black boxes – from the American Airlines passenger plane that crashed near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday, CBS News reported.
A passenger plane carrying 64 people crashed into Washington's Potomac River on Wednesday after a mid-air collision with a military helicopter, with US media reporting multiple bodies being recovered from the dark, near-freezing water.
The plane was approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport around 9:00 p.m. (02 GMT) after flying from Wichita, Kansas, when the collision occurred. PSA Airlines, a subsidiary of American Airlines, which operated the Bombardier aircraft, said that "there were 00 passengers and four crew members on board the aircraft."
US media, citing local sources, reported that multiple bodies had been recovered, with CBS News reporting at least 18. The Washington Post, citing a statement from US Figure Skating, reported that several athletes, coaches and officials were on board the flight.
A U.S. military official said the helicopter involved was a Black Hawk carrying three soldiers, whose condition is currently unknown. They were on a “training flight,” a separate military spokesman said in a statement.
A massive search and rescue operation is underway, with divers working the frozen river. "We'll be out there as long as it takes and obviously we're trying to get to people as quickly as possible," Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters.
Washington Fire Chief John Donnelly said at a news conference that emergency crews, totaling about 300 people, were working in "extremely harsh" conditions and gave little indication that they expected to find anyone alive.
Witness Ari Schulman was driving home when he saw what he described as “a stream of sparks” from above. “I saw the plane at first and it looked okay, normal. It was ready to land,” he told CNN. “Three seconds later, and at that point it was banked to the right… I could see the underside of it, it was lit up a very bright yellow color and there was a stream of sparks underneath it,” Schulman added.
Investigators will try to piece together the planes' final moments before their collision, including contact with air traffic controllers as well as the passenger jet's loss of altitude.
Minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial airliner if it could land on the airport's shorter runway 33, and the pilots said they could. The controllers then cleared the plane to land on runway 33. Flight tracking websites showed the plane adjusted its approach to the new runway.
Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had visual contact with the approaching plane. The controller radioed the helicopter again a few minutes later: “PAT 25 is passing behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.
The plane's radio transmitter stopped transmitting about 2.400 feet short of the runway, about halfway up the river. Video from a surveillance camera at the nearby Kennedy Center showed two rows of lights matching the aircraft that appeared to merge into a ball of fire.
The collision occurred on a warm winter evening in Washington, D.C., with temperatures reaching 60 degrees Fahrenheit after several days of cold and freezing temperatures. On Wednesday, the Potomac River was 36 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Weather Service said wind gusts of up to 25 mph were possible in the area throughout the afternoon.
Trump criticizes air traffic control
President Donald Trump said in an official statement that he had been "fully briefed" and said of the victims, "God bless their souls."
But, less than four hours after the disaster — and while other officials stressed they were waiting for investigations to unfold — he returned to social media to criticize air traffic control.
“The plane was on a perfect and normal approach to the airport. The helicopter was heading straight for the plane for a long time. It’s a clear night, the lights on the plane were shining,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform. “Why didn’t the helicopter go up or down or turn around. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that should have been prevented,” he added.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a grounding of all planes at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, and the airport was not scheduled to reopen until 11:00 a.m. (16:00 GMT) on Thursday.
The CEO of American Airlines issued a video statement expressing "deep sadness," while U.S. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas called the collision "nothing short of a nightmare."
Congested airspace
Questions center on how a passenger plane with modern collision avoidance technology and nearby air traffic controllers could collide with a military aircraft over the nation's capital.
The airspace around Washington is often crowded, with planes flying low over the city to land at Reagan National Airport and helicopters — military or civilian carrying senior politicians or officials — buzzing day and night.
The same airport was the scene of a fatal accident in January 1982, when Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737, took off but quickly plummeted, hitting the 14th Street Bridge and crashing into the ice of the Potomac River. Seventy-eight people died.
Investigators concluded that the pilot had not activated adequate de-icing procedures. The last major fatal air crash in the US was in 2009, when Continental Flight 3407 from New Jersey to Buffalo, New York, crashed, killing all 49 people on board.
Source: ertnews
