Salvage crews recover engine, large portion of jet from river after deadly air collision near DC

[February 04, 2025]  By DAVID R. MARTIN, MICHAEL R. SISAK and CLAUDIA LAUER

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Salvage crews have recovered an engine and large pieces of fuselage and are working to retrieve a wing from the wreckage of a commercial airliner involved in last week's midair collision near Washington’s Reagan National Airport, officials said Monday.

They also recovered more human remains from the Potomac River, although they declined to offer specifics, reiterating only that 55 of the 67 victims have been found and identified since the crash Wednesday.

Authorities have said the operation to remove the plane will take several days and they will then work to remove the military helicopter involved. The crash between the American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter over Washington D.C. was the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001.

More than 300 responders were taking part in the recovery effort at any given time, officials said. Two Navy barges were also deployed to lift heavy wreckage.

Washington, D.C. Fire Department Assistant Chief Gary Steen told a news briefing that officials are confident all of the victims would be found.

Divers and salvage workers are adhering to strict protocols and stopped moving debris at times when human remains were being recovered, said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. Francis Pera. The “dignified recovery” of remains takes precedence over all else, he said.

Portions of the two aircraft that collided over the river Wednesday night near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport — an American Airlines jet with 64 people aboard and an Army Black Hawk helicopter with 3 aboard — are being loaded onto flatbed trucks and will be taken to a hangar for investigation. Crews hoped to recover the jet's cockpit on Tuesday, Pera said.

The crash occurred when the jet, en route from Wichita, Kansas, was about to land. The Black Hawk was on a training mission. There were no survivors.

On Sunday, family members were taken in buses with a police escort to the Potomac River bank near where the two aircraft came to rest after colliding.

The plane’s passengers included figure skaters returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita and a group of hunters returning from a guided trip. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were in the helicopter.

Federal investigators were working to piece together the events that led to the collision. Full investigations typically take a year or more. Investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.

Rescue and salvage crews with cranes pull up the wreckage of an American Airlines jet in the Potomac River from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.

Experts stress that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, but the crowded airspace around Reagan Airport can challenge even experienced pilots.

The NTSB said Saturday that preliminary data showed conflicting readings about the altitudes of the airliner and the helicopter.

Investigators also said that about a second before impact, the jet’s flight recorder showed a change in its pitch. But they did not say whether that change in angle meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive maneuver to avoid the crash.

Data from the jet’s flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet (99 meters), plus or minus 25 feet (7.6 meters), when the crash happened, NTSB officials told reporters. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk at 200 feet (61 meters), the maximum allowed altitude for helicopters in the area.

The discrepancy has yet to be explained.

On Monday, officials cautioned against premature speculation about the cause of the crash or the helicopter’s altitude, or whether or why it may have been traveling above the 200-foot ceiling in the area.

“There are all kinds of reasons that you could deviate from an altitude, you know, something as simple as a flock of birds is in front of you or you may deviate if you see something that’s an obstacle or other threat,” said Col. Mark Ott, deputy director of aviation for the Army.

Investigators said they hoped to reconcile the difference with data from the helicopter’s black box and planned to refine the tower data, which can be less reliable. All five air traffic controllers in the Reagan Airport tower at the time of the collision have been interviewed, the NTSB said Monday.

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Associated Press writers Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and videojournalist Nathan Ellgren in Arlington, Virginia, contributed reporting.

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