Washington, Feb 5: The remains of all 67 individuals who died in the helicopter and passenger plane mid-air collision in Washington last week have been recovered by rescue teams, US media cited the Unified Command as saying.
Sixty-six of the remains have been positively identified, the reports Xinhua news agency, quoting ABC News. The Unified Command said its crews are still working to clear the wreckage, including large pieces of the plane, from the Potomac River, and large lifts will continue through Tuesday evening.
Unloading is expected when “environmental and tidal conditions allow” on Wednesday. It added that operations will then shift to recovering wreckage from the Black Hawk helicopter. A passenger jet carrying 64 onboard collided Wednesday night with an Army helicopter while landing at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, with both aircraft falling into the freezing Potomac River.
Three US Army soldiers were onboard the helicopter. This is the deadliest air accident in Washington since 1982. An investigation into the accident is underway, led by the US National Transportation Safety Board. Earlier on Thursday, the Washington Fire Chief said that there are likely no survivors in the mid-air collision of a passenger plane and helicopter.
“We are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. At this point, we don’t believe there are any survivors from this accident,” John Donnelly, chief of the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, told a press conference at the airport on Thursday morning.
Donnelly said that at 8:48 p.m. local time Wednesday night, the control tower sounded an alert, notifying responders about a reported aircraft crash on or near the airport, noting that about 300 rescuers responded to the accident. “These responders found extremely frigid conditions. They found heavy wind. They found ice on the water, and they operated all night in those conditions,” he added.
At the press conference, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that the helicopter was following a “standard” flight pattern on Wednesday night and the passenger plane was also on a “standard” approach as it was coming into Washington, without specifying what went wrong before the deadly collision. Duffy noted that the National Transportation Safety Board will begin analysing the aircraft in partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration.
IANS