Authorities have recovered 41 bodies after a plane crash in Washington DC.
Sixty-seven people were killed when an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter collided mid-air on Wednesday night.
Both aircraft crashed into the Potomac River after colliding. Some 300 personnel rushed to the scene, but the rescue soon turned into a recovery mission as officials said there were no survivors.
DC’s fire department confirmed on Friday that 41 bodies have been recovered.
Meanwhile, amid questions over how well the airport’s control tower was staffed on the night of the crash, it’s been confirmed that an air traffic control supervisor had let a controller leave their shift early.
The detail, first reported by the New York Times, has been confirmed to Sky News’ US partner NBC News by a source familiar with the investigation.
It means a single controller was handling both plane and helicopter traffic in the area when the two aircraft collided.
It is allowable – but not optimal – for one controller to do both jobs, NBC News reported.
The American Airlines jet was carrying 60 passengers and four crew when it crashed with the Black Hawk helicopter, carrying three soldiers, shortly before 9pm local time on Wednesday.
Flight 5342 was preparing to land on runway 33 at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport when it collided with the helicopter in one of the most tightly controlled airspaces in the world.
‘Hug your loved ones,’ says man whose wife died in crash
A man whose wife was on the flight has recalled how he saw emergency services “speeding past” as he was waiting at the airport to pick her up.
Hamaad Raza told NBC News his wife of two years, Asra, had “texted me [and] said, ‘We’re landing in 20 minutes’”.
“I was waiting and I started seeing a bunch of EMS vehicles speeding past me… way too many, [more] than normal and my texts weren’t going through.”
“It’s crazy that it happened to us,” he said. “You see these things happen in the news, you see them happen in other countries and then I show up to the airport and my wife’s not responding. I look on Twitter and I see that it’s her flight.”
As he faces an agonising wait while the recovery mission continues, Mr Raza said the thing he would like people to understand is: “Life is short, hug your loved ones, tell them you love them. When they’re getting on a flight, check up on them. Text your family when you land.”
Trump makes unproven diversity drive claim
Donald Trump has linked a diversity drive at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under previous governments to the crash.
It has since been said there is no evidence to support the US president’s claim.
Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Mr Trump suggested the diversity efforts had made air travel less safe.
He said: “We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas.”
While Mr Trump’s claim appears to have been debunked, there are questions over staffing at Reagan Washington National Airport.
NBC News reported staffing in the air traffic control tower was “not normal”, according to an initial FAA report.
The tower normally has a controller who focuses specifically on helicopter traffic – but at the time of the crash, a source said, one controller was overseeing both plane and helicopter activity.
The FAA, which controls air traffic control as well as certification of personnel and aircraft, is without a permanent administrator. Its former boss Michael Whitaker stepped down on 20 January – the day of Mr Trump’s inauguration.
Mr Trump has appointed an acting administrator, Chris Rocheleau, in the wake of the crash.
Mr Whitaker had clashed with Mr Trump’s confidante Elon Musk over the SpaceX rocket launches during his tenure at the FAA.
Since starting as head of the administration in October 2023, he was also forced to respond to Boeing’s safety and quality problems, and worked to hire more air traffic controllers due to a shortage of staff.
At his briefing, Mr Trump blamed former president Joe Biden for lowering standards for air traffic controllers.
“We have to have our smartest people,” he said. “They have to be naturally talented geniuses.”
Mr Trump added: “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.”
The American Association of People with Disabilities responded to these claims, saying in a statement on X: “FAA employees with disabilities did not cause [the] 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.”
Mr Trump also criticised former president Barack Obama for putting “policy over safety” when it came to US aviation.
“I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary,” he said.
Mr Trump said after being sworn in last week, he signed an executive order which “restored the highest standards of air traffic controllers”.
“When I left office and Biden took over he changed them [standards for those who work in aviation system] back to lower than ever before, I put safety first, Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen because this was the lowest level,” he said.
At a later briefing, he was asked if gender or race played a role. He answered: “It may have, I don’t know. Incompetence may have played a role.”
US transport secretary plans FAA overhaul
Transportation secretary Sean Duffy has said he is working on a plan to reform the FAA .
“I am in the process of developing an initial plan to fix the @FAANews. I hope to put it out very shortly,” he said on X.
Mr Trump’s nominee to lead the US Army, Daniel Driscoll, said at a Senate confirmation hearing that training exercises near an airport like the Washington National Airport may not be appropriate.
Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the US since November 2001, when an American Airlines flight hit a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, just after take-off from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard.
The last major fatal crash involving a US commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York, when 50 people were killed.
The Pentagon and US army are investigating Wednesday’s collision, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said on X.
Leave a Reply