Less than a week after an American Airlines plane collided with a Black Hawk helicopter, pieces of the wreckage were lifted from the Potomac River.
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The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced on Monday, Feb. 3, that it and the U.S. Navy Supervisor of Salvage recovered the aft fuselage, right enge and right pylon of Flight 5342. The salvage team is set to recover the Black Hawk after the American Airlines’ Bombardier CRJ700 has been recovered.
“The NTSB investigative team has obtained training and flight logs for both flight crews and maintenance logs for both aircraft,” the government agency shared. “The human performance group is building several day histories for both flight crews to include their daily activities. The Air Traffic Control group has completed interviews of all five staffed positions in the tower.”
The NTSB also reported that its investigators are now working to synchronize flight data record and cockpit voice recorder data from aircrafts, ATC communications, and radar scope data to obtain a detailed crash timeline.
“The flight data recorder for the Black Hawk did not have timestamps,” the NTSB further confirmed. “Investigators will have to manually create timestamps, which requires additional time to validate.”
The tragic collision occurred on Wednesday, Jan. 29, at approximately 8:47 p.m. As the American Airlines flight was preparing to touch down at Reagan Washington National Airport, it crashed into a Black Hawk helicopter. Both aircrafts then plunged into the nearby Potomac River.
All 64 people aboard Flight 5342 and the three soldiers on the Black Hawk helicopter were killed.
A preliminary reporter, which will contain information from the investigation, is expected within 30 days of the accident. The final report will be released between 12 and 24 months.
Washington Fire and EMS Chief Stated All Victims of the Midair Collision Will Be Recovered
According to NBC News, Washington Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly announced that all the victims of the midair collision would be recovered.
“We’re going to recover everyone,” he vowed. “If we knew where they were, though, we would already have them out, so we have some work to do as the salvage operation goes on.”
Donnelly also stated that he and his team will search until they have everybody.
The wreckage needs to be removed for the search teams to recover all of the victims. So far, 55 victims’ remains have been positively identified.
Colonel Frank Pera of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore district also stated in a Monday press conference that Tuesday’s efforts to remove aircraft parts from the Potomac River may be impacted by weather. However, he noted the salvage crews are on track to achieve wreckage recovery goals.
“That goal may be impacted tomorrow by a couple of environmental conditions, notably the wind,” he noted. “But we’re going to stay conscious kind of where those gusts and sustained winds are, and we’ll make sure that we’re communicating that effectively.”
The wreckage will be taken to a hangar for the NTSB to investigate.