ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Police boats combed the banks of the Potomac River on Friday, slowly scanning the shoreline under rainy skies as investigators sought clues into the midair collision that killed 67 people and raised questions about air traffic safety around the nation’s capital.
No one survived the Wednesday night collision between the commercial airliner and an Army helicopter. Forty-one bodies had been pulled from the river as of Friday afternoon, including 28 that had been positively identified, Washington, D.C., Fire Chief John Donnelly Sr. said at a news conference. He said next of kin notifications had been made to 18 families, and that he expects that all 67 if the bodies of the dead will eventually be recovered.
“It’s been a tough response for a lot of our people,” Donnelly said, noting that more than 300 responders were taking part in the effort at any one time.
Officials also heavily restricted helicopter traffic around the airport, an official said, hours after President Donald Trump claimed in a social media post that the Army Black Hawk had been flying higher than its allowed limit.
Planes continued to take off and land at Ronald Reagan National Airport after the worst U.S. air disaster in a generation, though an airport official said two of its three runways remained closed on Friday.
Investigators have already recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder of the American Airlines jetliner, which struck the chopper as the plane was coming in for a landing at the airport next to Washington. Officials are scrutinizing a range of factors in what National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy has called an “all-hands-on-deck event.”
Investigators are examining the actions of the military pilot as well as air traffic control, after the helicopter apparently flew into the jet's path. Air crash investigations normally take 12-18 months, and investigators told reporters Thursday that they wouldn't speculate on the cause.
Authorities were still looking for the helicopter's black box recorder, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday on Fox News Channel. Other factors in the crash, including the helicopter’s altitude and whether the crew was using its night vision goggles, are still under investigation, he said.
Although some airspace had already been restricted following the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration decided to indefinitely bar most helicopters from using the low-to-the-ground routes that run under or parallel to the airport’s flightpaths, an official told The Associated Press on Friday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
Military aircraft frequently conduct such flights in and around the nation’s capital for familiarization with routes they would fly in case of a major catastrophe or an attack on the U.S. that would require relocating key government officials.
“You need to train as you fight. You need to rehearse in ways that would reflect a real world scenario,” Hegseth said. He stressed that it remained the Pentagon’s duty to also mitigate risks, while conducting such training.
The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members, and three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.
Officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kansas, carrying, among others, nine students and parents from Fairfax County, Virginia schools, a group of elite young figure skaters, their parents and coaches and a group of hunters.
Details have been emerging about others who died in the crash, including Danasia Elder, a flight attendant on the American Airlines flight, WSOC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina, reported.
Her brother-in-law, Brandon Payne, said she was married with two children and had dreamed of getting the airline job.
“She would want y’all to do the same thing she did. Chase your dreams, no matter what. Don’t let nothing scare you, push you away. Just believe in yourself, believe in God, and follow the path,” Payne said.
Debris from the crash has drifted miles (kilometers) downriver.
Dean Naujoks, who routinely patrols the Potomac for the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance, on Thursday found floating debris that had been pushed by the wind and current into a pair of shallow coves along the Maryland shore.
The wreckage included pages from a flight manual, part of the plane’s cabin wall, a woman’s sweater, dozens of sugar packets with the American Airlines logo and what appeared to be the cushion from a pilot’s seat. Naujoks, who had law enforcement permission to take his motorboat to the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, about 2 miles (roughly 3 kilometers) downriver from the crash site, turned the items over to the FBI.
“Everything is covered in jet fuel,” Naujoks said Friday. “The sugar packets made me think of the flight attendants. I’m thinking of the people these things belonged to and it’s a punch to the gut. It’s just a sad day on the river.”
One air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes when the collision happened, according to an FAA report obtained by the AP. Those duties are often divided between two people, but the airport typically combines the roles at 9:30 p.m., once traffic begins to slow down. On Wednesday, the tower supervisor directed that they be combined earlier.
“The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the report said.
A person familiar with the matter, however, said the tower staffing that night was at a normal level. The positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks, during shift changes or when air traffic is slow, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.
The FAA has long struggled with a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation, said the helicopter crew was “very experienced” and familiar with the congested flying that occurs daily around the city.
The helicopter's maximum allowed altitude at the time was 200 feet (about 60 meters), Koziol said. It was not immediately clear whether it exceeded that limit, but Hegseth said altitude seemed to be a factor in the collision.
Trump said in a Friday morning post on his Truth Social platform that the helicopter was “flying too high” at the time of the crash.
“It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???” Trump said. His comments came a day after he questioned the helicopter pilot's actions while also blaming diversity initiatives for undermining air safety.
Wednesday's crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard and five people on the ground.
The last major fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone aboard the propeller plane was killed, along with one person on the ground, bringing the total death toll to 50.
Experts often highlight that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, but the airspace around Reagan National can challenge even the most experienced pilots. They must navigate hundreds of other commercial planes, military aircraft and restricted areas around sensitive sites.
___
Gomez Licon reported from Miami. AP writer Lea Skene contributed to this report. Writers Lolita C. Baldor, Tara Copp, Meg Kinnard, Chris Megerian, Aamer Madhani and Michael Biesecker contributed from Washington. Sarah Brumfield reported from Cockeysville, Maryland.
___
This story was updated to correct the spelling of Jennifer Homendy's name, which had been misspelled Hommendy.
Lindsay Whitehurst, Zeke Miller, Claudia Lauer And Adriana Gomez Licon, The Associated Press
