By Olaitan Ibrahim
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has confirmed that investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane that collided on Wednesday night in midair with an Army helicopter, leaving 67 people dead near the flagship Ronald Reagan National Airport of the US capital city.
The agency said the recorders, a key component of determining the final moments and circumstances of air disasters, are at NTSB labs “for evaluation.”
NTSB spokesperson Peter Knudson said there are no additional recorders on the airplane, and investigators are searching for one recorder from the helicopter.
Federal aviation investigators vowed earlier in the day that they will find the cause of a horrific collision.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said at a briefing that the agency wants to assure the American public it will “leave no stone unturned in this investigation . . . This is a whole-of-government effort.”
Todd Inman of the NTSB said it is too soon to know whether human error or other factors were at play in Wednesday night’s collision, which left no survivors, but he said the agency expects to have a preliminary report within 30 days.
“A loss of life in an aviation accident is very unusual in the United States, and our heartfelt sorrow goes out to everyone who’s affected,” Inman said. “It affects us, it affects everyone around us. There are a lot of people hurting today. We will help find out what happened, we will do it factually and we will do it accurately.”
The U.S. had not had a major commercial plane crash since 2009, when a Colgan Air wreck outside Buffalo, New York, killed 50 people, including one on the ground. The nation’s deadliest previous aviation catastrophe claimed 260 lives in 2001, when an American Airlines flight went down in Queens, New York, almost exactly two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The crash occurred just before 9 p.m. Wednesday when American Airlines Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, attempted to land and collided in midair with the Black Hawk helicopter. The passenger plane, with 64 people aboard, and the helicopter, carrying three soldiers, plunged into the icy Potomac River and triggered a massive recovery effort.
Early Thursday morning, John Donnelly, the chief of Washington’s fire department, said 28 bodies were pulled from the water. He added that authorities were transitioning from a rescue mission to a recovery operation.
Officials have described both the airplane and helicopter crews as “experienced” and noted that the helicopter and the plane were following standard flight patterns.
“Everything was standard in the lead-up to the crash,” Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said. “Now, obviously something happened here, but you’ll get more information and more details as this investigation moves forward. We’ll learn what happened.”
Developments:
∎ Reagan National Airport, located in Arlington, Virginia, resumed flights at 11 a.m. Thursday, officials said. As of 10:30 a.m., more than 500 flights to and from the airport were canceled, according to FlightAware.
∎ Among those who died in the collision are Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the 1994 world championships for Russia in pairs figure skating before moving to the U.S. and becoming coaches. In addition, four other members of the Skating Club of Boston, including two teenagers and their parents, were on board the flight from Wichita.
∎ A Philippine National Police official was also aboard the doomed passenger plane, the agency announced Friday. A spokesperson said in a news briefing that Col. Pergentino Malabed, who served as the chief of the supply management division, was killed in the midair collision.
∎ Two Chinese citizens are among the victims of the crash, Xinhua, China’s state news agency, reported. The Chinese embassy told Xinhua it has requested the U.S. to verify the information, formally inform Chinese officials and provide assistance to the victims’ families. USA TODAY has reached out to the Chinese embassy for comment.
The pilots of the plane have been identified by sources close to them as captain Jonathan Campos and first officer Samuel Lilley, although the Washington medical examiner has yet to confirm the information.
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, said Campos, 34, was a 2015 graduate from the institution, which is “deeply saddened to learn of” his death. “Our thoughts are with his family and the families and loved ones of all impacted by this tragic accident,” school vice president for communications Sarah Barczyk added in a statement.
Lilley, 28, was also working on the flight, according to a Facebook post made by his father, Tim Lilley. The post also said the younger Lilley was engaged to be married in the fall.
“I was so proud when Sam became a pilot,” the post read. “Now it hurts so bad I can’t even cry myself to sleep.”
USA TODAY has reached out to Lilley’s father, Tim, who said he wasn’t immediately available to speak about his son. But he told the Daily Mail that his son was near becoming a captain.
Sam Lilley graduated from Georgia Southern University in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. School President Kyle Marrero told USA TODAY Lilley “embodied the Eagle spirit and soared beyond in his career.”
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves confirmed the identify Thursday of one of the three crew members of the U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter involved in the collision.
Reeves said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Eaves, a native of Brooksville, Miss., died in the crash.
The Clarion Ledger, a USA TODAY Network paper in Mississippi, reported that Eaves’ wife shared the news in a Facebook post early Thursday.
“I am sure by now all of you have heard the news of the tragedy that has occurred in DC. My husband was one of the pilots in the Blackhawk,” Carrie Eaves wrote. Later in the day, she posted a photo of her husband in uniform and invited others to share memories of him, and dozens shared photos of him doing community service, running in a marathon or spending time with family and friends.
A day before the horrific midair collision between an American Airlines flight and Army helicopter near the nation’s capital, a passenger airplane had to abort its first landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport after a chopper appeared in its flight path, The Washington Post and CNN reported.
The Post, citing an audio recording from air traffic control, reported that Republic Airways Flight 4514 had to “make a second approach after a helicopter appeared near its flight path.”
The plane, flying from Connecticut, reached an altitude of about 1,600 feet during its first descent, while the helicopter was at about 300 feet, according to CNN.
The Post first reported the Tuesday incident.
President Donald Trump noted the loss of life earlier Thursday. “Sadly, there are no survivors,” Trump said at the White House. Trump also said the helicopter crew “should’ve seen where they were going.”
Trump speculated on possible causes of the collision and leveed criticisms at previous Democratic administrations as well as policies of diversity, equity and inclusion while speaking about the crash.
Trump referenced “a confluence of bad decisions that were made,” but at different times suggested the Federal Aviation Administration and air traffic controllers could be blamed without providing evidence.
He later admonished the administrations of former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and then took aim at FAA hiring practices. “The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website,” he said.
Trump provided no evidence backing up his claims that Biden- and Obama-era hiring practices and diversity initiatives are to blame for the crash. He did not say when the air traffic controllers involved in the crash were hired, nor did he specify their race or gender.
The American Association of People with Disabilities posted a message on social media saying, “FAA employees with disabilities did not cause last night’s tragic plane crash. The investigation into the crash is still ongoing. It is extremely inappropriate for the President to use this tragedy to push an anti-diversity hiring agenda. Doing so makes all Americans less safe.”
Leaders of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus echoed similar concerns in a statement. “As families grieve the loss of their loved ones in last night’s aviation crash, President Trump does not offer any semblance of compassion or leadership,” the group said. “Instead, he is exploiting this tragedy to advance his discriminatory agenda and further divide Americans.”
Rep. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, blasted Trump and his fellow Republicans for seeking to “scapegoat and villainize” Black and minority communities for political gain.
“President Trump, without evidence or regard for the gravity and solemnity of this incident in which American lives were lost, held a press conference to falsely blame the diversity initiatives of past administrations for the cause of this incident,” the caucus wrote in a statement. “Not only are the President’s claims untrue, they also speak to the Republican Party’s desire to divide us as a country.”
At Thursday’s briefing, the NTSB’s Homendy also responded to Trump’s statements on DEI: “As part of any investigation, we look at the human, the machine and the environment, so we will look at all the humans that were involved in this accident. Again, we will look at the aircraft, we will look at the helicopter, we will look at the environment in which they were operating in. That is standard in any part of our investigation.”
At the news conference, Homendy asked reporters for patience in finding the cause of the accident, saying, “We have substantial amounts of information. We need to verify information, we need to take our time to make sure it’s accurate.”
Others are also searching for explanations for the rare mid-air collision that resulted in the nation’s deadliest aviation disaster in more than two decades.
One of the first topics to address will be whether either the plane or helicopter was in the wrong airspace. Early signs from air traffic control audio suggest the American Airlines flight was following the designated path for landing at the airport and that the helicopter was also in an area it was generally authorized to be in, though possibly at a different altitude than the one designated for its flight path.
“Even the best experts right now, who are on the front lines, have a ton of unanswered questions,” said William J. McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project. “They know more than we do right now, but they still don’t know everything.”