As the helicopter is approaching the airport, the cockpit voice recorder captures the pilot saying it is flying at 300 feet (91 meters) and the instructor pilot says it is at 400 feet (122 meters).
The helicopter's pilots say they see the jet and ask for permission to maintain visual separation — allowing it to fly closer than otherwise may have been allowed if the pilots didn’t see the plane.
Just after the plane descends past its last recorded altitude of 313 feet (95 meters), the pilots pull up the nose of the plane sharply in an evasive maneuver one second before impact.
More than two weeks after a helicopter and airplane collision over Washington killed 67 people, investigators have completed their work at the scene where both aircraft fell into the Potomac River in the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001.
Nearby an Army Black Hawk helicopter, referred to as PAT25 by air traffic control, is flying south over the River.
