Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board are in the initial stages of what’s setting up to be a sprawling and consequential probe into a deadly, midair crash between a regional passenger jet and a military helicopter just outside D.C. and Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia.
The crash killed 67 people, including 60 passengers and four crew members on an American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, to Reagan National. The three soldiers aboard the Army Black Hawk helicopter that collided with the passenger jet also died.
Thursday was the first full day the NTSB’s team had access to the crash site, as investigators made way for search and dive teams in the Potomac River on Wednesday night. Close to 50 members of the NTSB were on scene, combing through the wreckage left from an aviation disaster that unfolded just a mile away from the board’s D.C. headquarters.
‘All hands on deck’ investigation underway
“This is an all hands on deck event. And we’re here to assure the American people that we are going to leave no stone unturned in this investigation. We are going to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy, looking at the facts,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said during a news conference Thursday.
NTSB accident investigations are thorough, and typically take at least a year to complete, at which point the board will issue its final report. In the mean time, NTSB member Todd Inman said the board will work on issuing a preliminary report within 30 days.
Inman, who’s serving as the board member on scene for this investigation, said its investigative team will be at the crash site for as long as it takes to collect all the evidence and facts that are needed to reach a conclusion of probable cause.
“Our mission is to understand not just what happened, but why it happened, and to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again,” Inman said.
During Thursday’s news conference, NTSB said flight data recorders, often referred to as black boxes, had not yet been recovered from the plane and helicopter involved, but Homendy and Inman said they were confident teams would be able to retrieve them. Hours later, agency spokesperson Peter Knudson said investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the passenger airplane, and both were sent to the agency’s labs for evaluation.
Black Hawks are also equipped with such recording devices, Inman said, and they’ll be analyzed by either the Department of Defense or NTSB as part of the investigation.
The body of the plane was found in waist-deep water, upside down and split in three sections. The wreckage of the helicopter was also found. The bodies of both aircraft will also be important in the investigation, according to William Waldock, professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
He said he believes the debris will be taken to a hangar and reassembled in order to give investigators more insight into the impact and what led to the crash.
“That visual reconstruction may reveal some things about the ability of the two pilots to see each other,” Waldock said.
Debris from the crash could wind up miles and miles away, if it was carried by the Potomac River, according to Waldock.
“You may find pieces down in Virginia Beach weeks or months from now,” he said.
Anyone who finds debris should not touch it and instead call their local police department, Waldock said.
According to Inman, the NTSB also received a “very large” package of information, which includes relevant air traffic control data, from the FAA on Thursday morning.
“That is still being reviewed and analyzed. I would say there’s a lot more information that usually comes in that than what you might find online, and people might speculate about, and that is part of that overall process where we take the time to get the information correct,” Inman said.
‘No survivors,’ recovery operation continues
Passengers on the plane included members of U.S. Figure Skating and of a D.C.-area union, UA Local 602, which represents people who work on heating, air conditioning, refrigeration and process piping.
Three soldiers were on board the Black Hawk helicopter when it collided with the passenger jet, which was preparing to land on Runway 33 at Reagan National. Officials said the bodies of all three have been recovered.
A law enforcement source told WTOP that, as of 5:30 p.m. Thursday, “well over” 40 bodies had been recovered from the icy waters of the Potomac River and that, while recovery operations are continuing Thursday night, divers won’t be back in the water until Friday.
The soldiers involved, military officials said, were conducting a training mission in the helicopter from the 12th Aviation Battalion at Davison Army Airfield in Fort Belvoir. The crew collided with the jet, a Bombardier CRJ700, just after 8:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Both aircraft plunged into the icy Potomac River below, setting off a large-scale rescue mission involving boats, dive teams and a horde of other first responders.
Timeline of events
WTOP Aviation Reporter Dan Ronan provided a partial reconstruction of the Wednesday events that led to the crash, based on initial flight maps and air traffic control audio:
- 5:18 p.m. — American Airlines Flight 5342, a CRJ 700, takes off from Wichita, Kansas, bound for Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
- 8:39:40 p.m. — Army UH-60 helicopter out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, takes off on a training exercise with three people aboard, flying up the Potomac River from the area of Langley.
- 8:40 p.m. — Flight 5342 begins approaching Reagan National’s Runway 33 from the south of D.C.
- 8:48:38 p.m. — Air traffic control tower radios the U.S. Army UH-60 helicopter (PAT25) and asks, “Do you have the CRJ in sight?” The helicopter pilot confirms he sees the passenger plane and requests “visual separation” — confirming he is going to try to fly out of the plane’s path.
- 8:48:56 p.m. — Flight 5342 and the helicopter collide over the Potomac at an altitude of about 300 feet, as the plane was traveling about 145 mph, per the last recordings from FlightRadar24.
The Associated Press and WTOP’s Mike Murillo contributed to this report.
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