Black box from Black Hawk helicopter recovered following deadly DC air collision

At least one air traffic controller who was working at the time of the crash has been interviewed by investigators, National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said.

He said interviews are ongoing and it was unclear how many controllers were working at the time.

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“Air traffic control interviews are critical,” he said. “That’s the reason why there’s a process in place that began immediately after the accident.”

He said investigators would also examine staffing levels, training, hiring and other factors, in addition to looking at the records of all air traffic controllers involved.

The plane had two recorders. One, a flight data recorder, was in good condition. It was opened Friday, and its information is expected to be downloaded shortly, National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said.

Water had gotten inside the cockpit voice recorder, however. While that’s not unusual, it adds to investigators’ work to download the data.

The helicopter’s data is all held in one black box. It is now at the NTSB headquarters. While investigators have not attempted to open it yet, it appears to be undamaged.

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The black box from the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a commercial jetliner in Washington has been recovered, investigators say.

Investigators are reviewing the flight data recorder along with two from the plane as they probe the cause of the devastating crash.

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National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said he spent the past several hours with the victims’ families.

“They are one of our primary concerns, along with making sure we get factual information out,” he said.

He said there are now over 100 family members in the area receiving briefings and assistance.

Small teams of first responders on skiffs searched the shoreline in Alexandria, Virginia, for debris from the wreckage.

A crew from the Alexandria Fire Department had one member designated as a diver to get into the sometimes chest-deep frigid water and lift items out.

The area over the Potomac River and near the airport is now off-limits to most helicopters to ensure safety in the aftermath of the crash, the FAA said.

The exceptions include emergency medical helicopters, active law enforcement and air defense. The presidential helicopter Marine One is also exempt.

The restrictions are expected to continue at least until the National Transportation Safety Board finishes its preliminary report, expected within 30 days.

Meanwhile, Terry Liercke, vice president and manager at Reagan National Airport, said 100 flights were canceled there Friday.

Two of the three runways at the airport were closed to prevent planes from flying over the crash site. Liercke said they will likely remain closed for about a week, but that will be reassessed as the recovery effort continues.

At the family’s request, the name of the third crew member killed in the crash isn’t being released at this time, the Army said.

The remains of Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, the crew chief, have been recovered and a positive identification is pending, the Army said.

The remains of Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland, and of the third soldier have not yet been recovered. Both are classified as duty status-whereabouts unknown, but officials have said there are no survivors of the crash.

Eaves, one of the pilots on the helicopter, served in the Navy from 2007 to 2017, then moved to the Army to serve as a Black Hawk pilot.

O’Hara had served as a helicopter repairer for Black Hawks since 2014. He deployed to Afghanistan from March to August 2017.

“Our deepest condolences go out to all the families and friends impacted during this tragedy, and we will support them through this difficult time,” said Maj. Gen. Trevor J. Bredenkamp, commander of Joint Task Force – National Capital Region. “Our top priority is to assist in the recovery efforts.”

“We won’t know for sure until we’re done,” he said.

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Much of the recovery work Friday is focused on the helicopter, he said.

The runways remain closed to prevent aircraft from taking off or landing over the crash site, Liercke said.

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But at the news conference, he said they’re “working as fast as we can.”

“That’s why our teams are still working,” he said.

Fire Chief John Donnelly Sr. said also next of kin notifications have been made to 18 families.

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Speaking at a Friday afternoon news conference, Terry Liercke, vice president and manager at Reagan National Airport, encouraged passengers to reach out to airlines for information on flight delays.

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They’re using the City Cruises ship as a place for divers to warm up, for first responders to have a warm meal or coffee, even using table linens as blankets for responders coming out of the water.

In a statement Friday, a spokesperson for Hornblower Group’s City Cruises said the crew of its ship the National Elite was continuing to assist searchers, and the crew of a second ship — Inner Harbor Spirit — had begun plans to do the same.

“We thank our Washington, D.C., and Alexandria based crews onboard the National Elite for their rapid response throughout the night,” the spokesperson wrote. “No words can adequately convey our sadness for the victims and their families, and we are holding them closely in our hearts.”

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It’s one of the most important pieces of forensic evidence following a plane crash: The so-called “black box.”

There are actually two of these remarkably sturdy devices: the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. And they’re typically orange, not black.

Federal investigators have recovered the black boxes from the passenger jet that crashed in the Potomac River. But authorities were still searching for similar devices in the military helicopter that also went down.

The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are tools that help investigators reconstruct the events that lead up to a plane crash.

They’re orange in color to make them easier to find in wreckage, sometimes at great ocean depths. They’re usually installed in a plane’s tail section, which is considered the most survivable part of the aircraft, according to the National Transportation Safety Board’s website.

▶ Read more about aircraft black boxes

Ronald Reagan National Airport has 25 fully certified air traffic controllers and three more who are in training, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The air-traffic control tower in the nation’s capital is authorized to have 28 controllers, the FAA said.

The three controllers who are in training have been fully certified before at other facilities, the agency said in a statement.

“He loved being a flight attendant because he truly enjoyed traveling and meeting new people. But his true love was his family,” Robbie Bloom said.

She said he was a father, a stepfather, a husband and a brother.

“He will be truly missed. Our biggest comfort at this time is the outpouring of love we are seeing from past passengers who met Ian while he was doing what he loved to do! The family appreciates the outpouring of love and support we’ve received, but at this time we would ask for privacy as we process and grieve our loss.”

She was a 20-year-old junior who was a passenger on the plane that collided with an Army helicopter.

Maxwell was flying back to the small Baptist college’s campus from her hometown of Wichita after going to her grandfather’s funeral Tuesday.

“Can you imagine losing a parent and seven days later losing a child,” Thomas White, the school’s president, told students gathered inside the campus chapel. “I want us to pray for the Maxwell family. I want us to lift them up.”

Maxwell was involved with a student radio station, studying mechanical engineering and working on a project to create a hand-stabilizing device to help a boy feed himself instead of rely on others.

Located along the Potomac River just southwest of Washington, Reagan National requires pilots to navigate hundreds of commercial planes, military aircraft and restricted areas.

Federal authorities, aviation experts and pilots have long worried about an increase in close calls. In May, an American Airlines plane canceled its takeoff from Reagan to avoid a plane that was landing on an intersecting runway. It was the second close call in six weeks.

A little more than 24 hours before Wednesday’s collision, a different regional jet descending to land at Reagan executed a go-around maneuver because of a military helicopter in the same area. Flight tracking sites and air-traffic control logs show the Embraer E-175 was cleared to land and advised about a helicopter in its vicinity when its automated collision avoidance system pushed it out of proper alignment for landing. It landed safely minutes later.

Small bits of debris were floating in the nearby river while police and fire crews launched boats from a dock to continue recovery efforts.

That’s according to an official briefed on the matter and comes after Wednesday’s collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a commercial jet killed 67 people.

Some of the airspace has already been restricted due to ongoing search and recovery efforts over the crash site, but now the agency responsible for air traffic control is indefinitely barring most helicopters from using the low-to-the-ground routes that run under or parallel to the airport’s flight paths. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

She was a “beloved wife,” “cherished daughter” and “loving sister,” said a statement from her family released by the Indianapolis Muslim Community Association.

The statement included a prayer for Hussain, who grew up in Carmel, Indiana, before receiving a bachelor’s degree in health care management from Indiana University and a master’s degree in health administration from Columbia University.

They were motoring slowly along while using binoculars and other equipment to examine the shoreline.

She was with her longtime partner, David Seidman, who was the love of her life, her family said.

Keys, an attorney with a D.C. law firm, grew up in Cincinnati, where she was her high school’s valedictorian in 2010 before going on to Tufts University, where she was on the sailing team.

She loved taking ski trips out West, hiking in Hawaii and entertaining friends around the fire pit at her home, her family said.

“Gatherings were always better when Liz was there; she was filled with light and joy. Liz was a dear friend to so many, offering her best self to them all,” said the statement released by her mother.

Riverkeeper Dean Naujoks, who routinely patrols the Potomac for the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance, got permission from law enforcement officials Thursday to take his 21-foot motorboat to the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, about two miles down from the crash site.

He found that floating debris from the passenger plane had been pushed by the wind and current into a pair of shallow coves along the Maryland shore.

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Naujoks recovered a piece of the interior wall from the passenger cabin that had surrounded a window, pages from a flight manual, a woman’s sweater and what appeared to be the cushion from a pilot’s seat. He turned the items over to the FBI.

“Everything is covered in jet fuel,” Naujoks said. “I’m thinking of the people these things belonged to and it’s a punch to the gut. It’s just a sad day on the river.”

Lainie Mazzullo-Hart, a spokesperson for the school, described her in an email as a civil rights attorney and an “overall amazing human.”

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They’re working under overcast skies with rain expected throughout the day.

Planes continue to take off and land at Reagan National, with airport operations gradually returning to normal after a slew of canceled and delayed flights following the crash.

The bodies were pulled from the Potomac River as a massive recovery effort continues following the deadliest aviation disaster in a generation, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The recovery efforts were continuing Friday. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???” Trump added in a Friday morning post on his Truth Social platform.

The comments from the president come the day after he questioned the actions of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot involved in the midair collision with a commercial airliner, while also blaming diversity initiatives for undermining air safety.

The maximum altitude where the Black Hawk was at the time of the crash — along a published corridor called Route 4 — was 200 feet above ground, according to Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that elevation seemed to be a factor in the crash.

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The three-person Army crew on the UH-60 Black Hawk was conducting a continuity of government planning training mission at the time of the midair crash.

Military aircraft frequently conduct such training flights in and around the nation’s capital for familiarization with routes they would fly in case of a major catastrophe or an attack on the U.S. that would require relocation of key officials from the capital region.

“You need to train as you fight, you need to rehearse in ways that would reflect a real world scenario,” Hegseth said during a Friday morning appearance on “Fox and Friends.”

Hegseth stressed that it remained the Pentagon’s duty to also mitigate risks, while conducting such training. But he underscored U.S. forces’ need “to ensure, if unfortunately, there were a real world event where things needed to happen we could respond to it day or night.”

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The history of the Skating Club of Boston is the history of American figure skating — in good times and in bad.

For more than a century, the club has launched the careers of Olympic medalists and world and national champions while also serving as a training ground for young skaters just learning the sport.

And when sorrow hits the skating world — as it did, doubly, this week — the Boston club feels the pain, as well.

Two teenage skaters, their mothers, and two coaches from the Skating Club of Boston were killed Wednesday night when the plane bringing them back from a national development camp in Wichita, Kansas, collided with an Army helicopter and fell into the frigid Potomac River. Even as skaters and their families mourned, news came that alumnus Dick Button — a two-time Olympic gold medalist for whom the club’s trophy room is named — had died at the age of 95.

It was also the home club for half of the American team that perished in a plane crash on its way to the 1961 world championships in Prague.

▶ Read more about the Skating Club of Boston

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The victims of the crash included teen figure skaters returning from a national meet with their mothers and coaches, an Ohio college student coming from her grandfather’s funeral, two Chinese nationals and a group of hunters headed back from a guided trip in Kansas.

As the search for remains continued Thursday, communities grieved. Faith leaders held a vigil Thursday in the city council chambers.

“The only way we will get through this is together,” said the Rev. Pamela Hughes Mason of Wichita’s St. Paul AME Church.

American Airlines set up a hotline as well as centers in Washington and Wichita for people searching for information about family members who may have been aboard the downed flight. The hotline can be reached at 1-800 679 8215.

▶ Read more about what we know about some of the people killed in Wednesday night’s crash

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Sam Lilley knew he wanted to fly and began training to be a pilot, like his father, right out of college.

“You don’t really expect to meet people that find their purpose so early on in life, and Sam found his in flying,” said Kaitlin Sells, who met Lilley while they were students at Georgia Southern University.

Lilley was the first officer aboard the American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members that collided midair Wednesday night with an Army helicopter carrying three soldiers, legislators in Georgia said.

Lilley and the rest of the American Airlines crew were traveling on a daily direct route from Wichita, Kansas, to Washington, D.C., at the time of the collision. The soldiers aboard the Black Hawk helicopter were conducting an annual night proficiency training flight, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, adding they were a “fairly experienced crew.”

▶ Read more about what we know so far about some members of the two flight crews

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says investigators have not yet recovered a key recording device from the Army helicopter involved in Wednesday’s fatal collision at Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Speaking on Fox News Channel on Friday, Hegseth noted authorities were still looking for the helicopter’s black box. Other factors in the crash, including the helicopter’s altitude and whether the crew was using its night vision goggles, are still under investigation, Hegseth said.

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The NTSB history dates to 1926, when Congress passed a law charging the U.S. Department of Commerce with investigating aircraft accidents.

It was established as an independent agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1967 and then separated by Congress in 1974 as a stand-alone organization, fully independent from any other federal agencies.

Since its creation in 1967, the agency reports it has investigated more than 153,000 aviation accidents and incidents.

NTSB officials did not say Thursday how long the investigation would take, but accident investigations often take between one to two years to complete.

The agency typically releases a preliminary report within a few weeks of the accident that includes a synopsis of information collected at the scene.

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Board member Todd Inman said the NTSB’s working groups include operations, which will examine flight history and crewmember duties; structures, which will document airframe wreckage and the accident scene; power plants, which will focus on aircraft engines and engine accessories; systems, which will study the electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic components of the two aircraft; air traffic control, which will review flight track surveillance information, including radar, and controller-pilot communications; survival factors, which will analyze the injuries to the crew and passengers and crash and rescue efforts; and a helicopter group.

The investigation also will include a human-performance group that will be a part of the operations, air traffic control and helicopter groups and will study the crew performance and any factors that could be involved such as human error, including fatigue, medications, medical histories, training and workload, Inman said.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Hommendy described the investigation into the crash Wednesday night as an “all-hands-on-deck event” for the agency during a news conference Thursday in which she appeared with members of the board and a senior investigator overseeing the probe.

The NTSB is an independent federal agency responsible for investigating all civil aviation accidents as well as serious incidents in the U.S. involving other modes of transportation, such as railroad disasters and major accidents involving motor vehicles, marine vessels, pipelines and even commercial space operators.

For the investigation into Wednesday’s crash, the NTSB will establish several different working groups, each responsible for investigating different areas connected to the accident, board member Todd Inman said.

▶ Read more about the NTSB