Crews lift large portion of airliner from river after Washington air disaster
More than 300 crew are taking part in the recovery effort at any given time, officials said.
Salvage crews have removed a large portion of a commercial jet from the Potomac River near Washington DC’s Ronald Reagan National Airport, five days after a mid-air collision killed 67 people.
Authorities said the operation to remove the plane will take several days and they will then work to remove the military helicopter also involved in the crash.
The crash between the American Airlines jet and an army helicopter on Wednesday was the deadliest US air disaster since 2001.
Authorities have recovered and identified 55 of the 67 people killed in the crash and Washington DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said they are confident all will be found.
More than 300 crew are taking part in the recovery effort at any given time, officials said. Two navy barges were also deployed to lift heavy wreckage.
Divers and salvage workers are adhering to strict protocols and will stop moving debris if a body is found, said Colonel Francis B Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers. The “dignified recovery” of remains takes precedence over everything else, he added.
Portions of the two aircraft that collided over the river on Wednesday night — an American Airlines jet with 64 people aboard and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter with three aboard — are being loaded on to flatbed trucks and will be taken to a hangar for investigation.
The crash occurred when the jet, en route from Wichita, Kansas, was about to land. The Black Hawk was on a training mission. There were no survivors.
On Sunday, 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 plane’s passengers included figure skaters returning from the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita and a group of hunters returning from a guided trip.
The three in the helicopter were Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland, and Captain Rebecca M Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina.
Federal investigators are working to piece together the events that led to the collision. Full investigations typically take a year or more, but investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the US since November 12 2001 when a jet slammed into a New York City neighbourhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.
Experts stress that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, but the crowded air space around Reagan Airport can challenge even experienced pilots.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on Saturday that preliminary data showed conflicting readings for the altitudes of the airliner and the helicopter.
Investigators also said that about a second before impact, the jet’s flight recorder showed a change in its pitch, but they did not say whether that change meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive manoeuvre to avoid the crash.
Data from the jet’s flight recorder showed its altitude as 325ft, plus or minus 25ft, when the crash happened, NTSB officials told reporters.
Data in the control tower showed the Black Hawk at 200ft, the maximum allowed altitude for helicopters in the area.
The discrepancy has yet to be explained.
Investigators said they hoped to reconcile the difference with data from the helicopter’s black box and planned to refine the tower data, which can be less reliable.
