Death toll rises after American Airlines plane crashed into Black Hawk as rescue diver reveals underwater ‘horrors’
A dozen more victims of the deadly American Airlines and Black Hawk helicopter crash have been identified, as rescue divers detailed the ‘horrors’ they saw as they tried to salvage the remains.
Washington DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly announced Sunday evening that 55 of the 67 victims of America’s deadliest crash since 2001 have been identified – an increase from the 42 that were previously identified.
Authorities will now continue to scour the Potomac River for the remains of every other person onboard Flight 5342 Wednesday night, which included entire families, young ice skaters, a college student and all four crew members.
Donnelly said he believes crew members will eventually recover the remains of the 12 other victims of the doomed flight, but they are unsure where the bodies may be, NBC News reports.
‘If we knew where they were, though, we would already have taken them out,’ he insisted. ‘So we have some work to do as this salvage operation goes on, and we will absolutely stay here and search until such point as we have everybody.’
‘Reuniting those lost in this tragic incident is really what keeps us all going,’ Col. Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers added.
Crew members are also scheduled to undertake a ‘lifting operation’ on Monday to remove the wreckage from the river.
Portions of the aircraft will then be loaded onto flatbed trucks and taken to a hangar for further investigation.
Washington DC crews are continuing to try to recover the bodies of every passenger and crew member onboard American Airlines Flight 5342 Wednesday night
Authorities announced Sunday that 55 of the 67 victims of America’s deadliest crash since 2001 have been identified
More than 300 responders are taking part in the recovery effort at any given time, officials said. Two Navy salvage barges were also deployed to lift heavy wreckage.
But the recovery efforts have proved to be challenging thus far, as Donnelly confirmed that a diver with the Metropolitan Police Department had to be transported to a local hospital for hypothermia.
He has since checked himself out of the hospital.
‘We’re happy to report that he’s doing fine, and that’s the only injury we have today,’ the chief reported.
An unidentified firefighter working the scene, however, told reporter Brian Entin he and others are ’emotionally wiped out after seeing the horror up close.’
The firefighter explained that the water is ‘actually very clear’ and with their flashlights, ‘they saw horrible things when they arrived.’
Meanwhile, family members of the victims gathered at the crash site on Sunday as they awaited news about their loved ones.
Dozens of people were seen arriving in 10 charger buses – with a police escort – to the banks of the Potomac River just outside Reagan National Airport, where the plane went down just before 9pm.
‘Some wanted to give us hugs. Some are just mad and angry,’ National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said of the grieving families.
‘They are just all hurt. And they still want answers, and we want to give them answers.’
Washington DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said Sunday he believes crew members will be able to recover the remains of the 12 other victims of the doomed flight, but they are unsure where the bodies may be
The collision occurred just before 9pm on Wednesday when the American Eagle flight was preparing to land at Ronald Reagan National Airport
It has since been revealed that the Black Hawk helicopter it collided into may have been flying hundreds of feet outside air traffic control’s predesignated, approved route for the international airport, just outside of the nation’s capitol.
The Black Hawk was supposed to be following ‘Route 4’ – a known path at Reagan National that allows helicopters to fly at altitudes below 200 feet to avoid commercial jets arriving at the Virginia airport – sources told The New York Times.
However, the military aircraft – which was marked as a PAT-25 – was flying above 300 feet and was at least a half-mile off course when it collided with American Airlines Flight 5342 on Wednesday evening, killing everyone onboard.
An experienced air traffic controller exclusively told DailyMail.com that the air traffic control (ATC) audio that emerged from the crash showed the operator’s instructions to the helicopter were ‘very ambiguous.’
In the nearly minute-and-a-half recording, ATC operators could be heard asking the helicopter if the commercial flight is in sight.
Through muffled audio, more commands and confirmations were made between ATC operators.
Family members of the victims gathered at the crash site on Sunday as they awaited news about their loved ones
Everybody on board the American Airlines flight is presumed dead
One air traffic controller said to the helicopter pilot: ‘PAT 2-5, do you have the CRJ in sight?’
Seconds later, the controller spoke again, requesting: ‘Pat 2-5 pass behind the CRJ.’
The Black Hawk never responded and moments later, the two aircrafts would collide in a fiery explosion over the river.
Five current and former controllers told The Times the controller should have instructed both aircrafts to fly away from each other rather than just asking one to move from the other.
However, they recognized that it’s harder to gauge distance at night and some wondered if the Black Hawk had mistaken a different plane in the busy airspace as AA 5342.
In addition, sources told The Times only one controller was dealing with both commercial planes and helicopters after one employee was sent home.
It is normal for one person to be in charge of both post-9:30 pm as airport traffic significantly decreases. However, the crash happened before 9 pm.
A preliminary FAA report, obtained by The Times, states that Reagan’s control tower staffing was ‘not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.’
When contacted by DailyMail.com, the FAA said it ‘cannot comment on any aspect of open investigations’ and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) – which is leading the investigation – will provide updates when it can.
DC Fire and EMS members are seen at the Anacostia River where they are holding the recovery operations near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
Federal investigators are now working around the clock to piece together exactly what went wrong.
‘This is a complex investigation,’ investigator-in-charge Brice Banning said. ‘There are a lot of pieces here. Our team is working hard to gather this data.’
Full investigations from the National Transportation Safety Board typically take at least a year, though investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.
In the meantime, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posed a series of questions about the crash on morning television news programs Sunday.
‘What was happening inside the towers? Were they understaffed?’ he asked on CNN.
‘The position of the Black Hawk, the elevation of the Black Hawk, were the pilots of the Black Hawk wearing night vision goggles?’
Then on Fox News, Duffy announced that the Federal Aviation Administration was looking into staffing at the control tower.
‘Staffing shortages for air traffic control has been a major problem for years and years,’ he lamented, as he promised that President Donald Trump’s administration would address shortages with ‘bright, smart, brilliant people in towers controlling airspace.’
Crew members are scheduled to undertake a ‘lifting operation’ on Monday to remove the wreckage from the river
Portions of the aircraft will then be loaded onto flatbed trucks and taken to a hangar for further investigation
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since November 12, 2001
In the aftermath of the crash, the FAA heavily restricted helicopter traffic around Reagan National, hours after Trump repeated the claims that the Army helicopter was flying higher than allowed.
‘It was far above the 200-foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???’ he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since November 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a residential neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport.
The crash killed all 260 people on board and five people on the ground.
Experts regularly highlight that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, but the crowded airspace around Reagan National can challenge even the most experienced pilots.
