Divers should return to the Potomac river on Friday as part of recovery and investigation after a collision in the air killed 67 people in the deadliest aviation disaster in the United States in near A quarter of a century.
Investigators have already recovered the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the American plane Airlines who collided with an army helicopter while the plane landed on Wednesday evening at the National Airport by Ronald Reagan next to Washington, DC
All on board the two planes were killed, the officials examining the actions of the military pilot as well as the control of air traffic after the helicopter apparently took the plane on the Jet of Bombardier CRJ700 operated by American Airlines. Managers of the multiple agencies involved in the survey would not speculate on the cause on Thursday.
The authorities still sought the tape recorder of the Black Hawk UH-60 helicopter, the defense secretary, the defense secretary on Fox News Channel said on Friday. Other factors of the accident, including the altitude of the helicopter and if the crew used its night vision glasses, is still investigating, HegSeth said.
More than 40 bodies have been removed from the water, said a law enforcement manager at the Associated Press. The manager was not authorized to discuss the details of the investigation and spoke under the cover of anonymity.
The National breaks down the chronology of the deadly collision between the Flight 5342 of American Airlines and a Black Hawk helicopter from the American army at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The staff of the air traffic controller examined
The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew members, and three soldiers were on the helicopter. A air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating helicopter traffic and the arrival and departure of planes when the collision occurred, according to a report by the Federal Administration of the American aviation obtained by the ‘Associated Press.
These tasks are often divided between two people, but the airport generally combines roles at 9:30 p.m., once traffic begins to slow down. On Wednesday, the tower supervisor ordered that they were combined earlier.
“The position configuration was not normal for the time of the day and the volume of traffic,” said the report.
The positions are regularly combined when the controllers must move away from the console for breaks, during the quarter -work changes or when the air traffic is slow, said the person, speaking under the cover of anonymity to discuss internal procedures .
The FAA has long fought with a shortage of air traffic controllers.
Officials said the flight conditions were clear when the jet arrived from Wichita in the Kan.
“The two pilots had already talked about this specific path, at night. It was something new to one or the other,” said Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff of the army. The maximum altitude of the helicopter allowed at the time of 60 meters, said Koziol.
It was not immediately clear if it exceeded this limit.
The airspace around Reagan national can even challenge the most experienced pilots, whatever the ideal. They must navigate hundreds of other commercial planes, military aircraft and limited areas around sensitive sites.
A little more than 24 hours before the deadly collision, another regional jet had to go around for a second chance to land in Reagan National after being informed of a nearby military helicopter, according to the flight tracking sites and Control newspapers.
Aviation experts claim that landing in the three major Washington airports has been difficult for decades due to a high volume of flight, a limited airspace and the existence of two zone -free areas.
Data recovery can be a long process
Air collisions surveys can take several months, and experts warn that no probe is identical, the flight records are not always able to provide complete responses. Almost all accidents involve several factors.
There are two compulsory recorders in civil aviation: a cockpit vocal recorder (CVR) for pilot votes or cockpit sounds, and a separate flight data recorder. Some devices combine the two functions.
After contact with water, they must first be carefully dried and the connections cleaned to ensure that the data is not accidentally erased. Audio and data files are downloaded and copied.
The data itself does not mean at first. It must be decoded from raw files before being transformed into graphics and synchronized with other data, such as air traffic control transmissions.
NTSB investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 plane involved in the open -air collision of yesterday in DCA. Recorders are at NTSB laboratories for evaluation. pic.twitter.com/ihypr0j76
Laboratory experts sometimes use “spectral analysis”, a means of deciphering ephemeral sounds or barely audible alarms.
A series of accidents in the 1990s in which the recorders had stopped operating when the power was lost led the NTSB to recommend enough backup power to provide 10 minutes of additional recording.
Wednesday’s accident has been the deadliest in the United States since November 12, 2001, when a flight from American Airlines collapsed in a residential area of Belle Harbor, NY, just after takeoff from the airport From Kennedy, killing the 260 people on board and five people on the ground.
The latest major fatal accident involving an American commercial airline took place in 2009 near Buffalo, NY, everyone aboard the Bombardier Holician plane was killed, with a person on the ground, bringing the total number of deaths to 50.
Experts often point out that plane trips are extremely safe.