Fire and emergency service officials in Washington said Friday that more than 40 bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of a commercial passenger jet and military helicopter that collided and crashed into the Potomac River late Wednesday.
Operations to recover the bodies of 67 people killed in the collision resumed at dawn Friday. The National Transportation Safety Board — or NTSB, the federal agency leading the investigation into the accident — reportedly is at the scene along with local and regional EMS crews.
The commercial jet, a Bombardier CRJ700 regional craft operated by American Airlines subsidiary PSA Airlines, carried 64 passengers and crew, while the U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter carried a crew of three. Officials said there were no survivors.
The NTSB reported late Thursday the cockpit voice recorder and flight-data recorder from the airliner, devices often referred to as black boxes, have been recovered and are at the agency’s labs for evaluation.
In an interview Friday with U.S.-based Fox News network, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the “black box” for the helicopter had not yet been recovered, but that its data will likely determine who was piloting the helicopter at the time of the crash.
Hegseth on Thursday said the crew, which was conducting a night-flight training evaluation, included a staff sergeant, a captain-in-training and a chief warrant officer, who was an instructor. The crew had been issued night vision goggles for the flight, but Hegseth said it was unclear if they were using them.
The defense secretary also said Thursday that the helicopter’s altitude at the time of the accident was under investigation. The two aircraft collided as the passenger jet was attempting to land at Reagan National Airport.
Hegseth said the flight voice and flight data recorders also could determine who was in communication with the airport’s air traffic control tower and if there was any confusion regarding the instructions they received.
Citing a government report, The Washington Post said Thursday that the control tower was understaffed Wednesday night. The report said two people were handling the jobs of four inside the tower at the time of the collision.
A similar report from U.S. broadcaster NBC News, citing a source familiar with the investigation, said a supervisor in the tower let an air traffic controller leave their shift early before the collision.
That decision, the report said, left one controller to handle airplane traffic and helicopter traffic in the area, whereas typically there is one controller looking at each type of aircraft.
The NBC report said it is allowable under Federal Aviation Administration standards for one person to do both jobs, although it is not considered optimal. The agency on Friday significantly restricted helicopter traffic in the immediate vicinity of Washington Reagan National Airport until further notice.
At a news conference Thursday, both U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner from Virginian said they had expressed concerns over the years regarding the high volume of air traffic in the Washington area, but they would await results from the accident probe before revisiting that specific concern.
During a White House news conference Thursday, President Donald Trump suggested previous presidential administrations, led by Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, lowered standards for the hiring of air traffic controllers and blamed diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives in the federal government for that.
He said he reversed those initiatives with executive orders last week.
The U.S. Figure Skating organization said several members of its community, including athletes, coaches and family members, were among the passengers on the plane.
“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” the organization said.
The Kremlin and Russian media said Russian figure skaters, including world champion couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, also were on the plane. Trump said his administration would facilitate the return of their remains to Russia.
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest aviation incident on U.S. soil since 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed in Belle Harbor, New York, killing 260 people.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
