Washington plane crash: officials say no survivors expected amid river recovery
Washington plane crash: officials say no survivors expected amid river recovery
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Bodies of 28 people have been retrieved from Potomac River after collision of passenger jet and military helicopter. No survivors are expected to be found following a mid-air collision of an American Airlines jet and a military Black Hawk helicopter in Washington DC, authorities have said. The bodies of 28 people have already been retrieved by search and rescue teams from the Potomac River.
More than 300 emergency workers, including divers, have been deployed to the river for a search and rescue operation in frigid conditions amid the wreckage of the aircraft. An American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members crashed into the US army helicopter with three soldiers onboard while attempting to land at Reagan national airport at about 9pm on Wednesday.
“We are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident,” said John Donnelly, Washington DC’s fire chief, said at a press conference on Thursday morning.
Donnelly said that the wreckage from the aircraft had been spread out by the wind but that recovery efforts continued. “We will continue to work to find all the bodies to reunite them with their loved ones,” he said. Muriel Bowser, Washington’s mayor, said that the passengers of the plane included “families from our region, Kansas and across the country. We share a profound sense of grief.”.
The American Airlines jet broke into three parts and was in waist-deep water in the freezing Potomac, according to Sean Duffy, the new federal transportation secretary. Duffy said both the helicopter and the passenger plane were flying in a “standard flight pattern” on a clear night before the crash and that investigators would work to ascertain how the accident occurred.
