The Nationwide Transportation Security Board mentioned on Monday it has accomplished interviews with air visitors controllers in its investigation into the collision last week between an American Airways regional passenger jet and a U.S. Army helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington that killed 67 folks.
The salvage group on Tuesday recovered a part of the fuselage and proper engine of the Bombardier CRJ-700 passenger jet and can retrieve the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk after the airplane has been recovered.
The NTSB mentioned it has obtained coaching and flight logs for each flight crews and upkeep information for each plane and is constructing histories for each flight crews. The collision occurred on Wednesday night.
Further radar information will probably be launched on Tuesday as investigators work to finish a extra exact image of what occurred, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy advised Reuters.
“We now have way more granular information from Potomac TRACON that we’re going to have the ability to launch,” Homendy mentioned, referring to a Federal Aviation Administration terminal radar strategy facility in Virginia.
Figuring out Stays
The Washington, D.C., fireplace division mentioned on Sunday that officers had recognized 55 of the 67 folks killed within the collision. Further human stays have been recovered however not recognized, the division mentioned on Monday. These and extra stays are nonetheless within the means of being recognized by the health worker’s workplace.
Wreckage is being moved to Hangar 7 at Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport. A lot of the Potomac River stays restricted to licensed vessels. Two of the lesser-used runways on the airport stay closed.
Homendy mentioned the NTSB additionally plans to take a look at prior near-miss incidents between helicopters and airplanes round Washington Reagan and will increase the investigation “to different areas the place there’s navy helicopter and air visitors.”
Homendy mentioned the NTSB can also be conducting interviews with American Airways and the U.S. Military.
“We’re going to have to know what are normal working procedures” for a helicopter coaching mission, she mentioned.
Investigators from the NTSB mentioned on Saturday that they had decided that the CRJ-700 airplane that had departed Wichita, Kansas, was at 325 ft (99 meters), plus or minus 25 ft, on the time of impression.
The element means that the Military Black Hawk helicopter was flying above 200 ft (61 meters), the utmost altitude for the route it was utilizing.
Homendy mentioned that information was from DC radar which updates each 5 seconds, and “that may change in a fast time frame when the helicopter is transferring at velocity.”
Knowledge confirmed that the air visitors controller alerted the helicopter to the presence of the CRJ-700 about 2 minutes earlier than the collision.
In the meantime, kin of a number of the victims visited the sting of the river close to the crash website on Sunday.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward and David Shepardson in Washington; Modifying by Susan Heavey, Mark Porter and Matthew Lewis)
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