On Thursday investigators recovered the black boxes from an American Airlines passenger plane involved in a midair collision with a US Army helicopter over Washington’s Potomac River, killing 67 people on board.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) confirmed on Friday that it had recovered both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier passenger jet.
“The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation,” the agency said in a post on X.
Jennifer Homendy, NTSB Chairman, earlier assured reporters that the agency would ‘leave no stone unturned’ in its probe into the incident, the first fatal U.S commercial airline crash since 2009.
“We are going to conduct a thorough investigation of this entire tragedy, looking at the facts,” Homendy said.
Trump’s Reaction to the Crash
The announcement comes following Donald Trump’s remarks, who suggested that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies at the Federal Aviation Administration could have contributed to the tragedy.
“These are not people who should be doing this particular job,” Trump said at a news conference, without specifying whom he was referring to. “We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level.”
Before landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday, air traffic controllers asked the pilots of American Airlines Flight 5342 if they could use Runway 33. The pilots adjusted their flight path accordingly.
Read More: Washington: Passenger Jet, Army Helicopter Collide Near Airport
Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the army helicopter crew if they could see the arriving plane.
While the officials have not shared a complete list of the victims, they include two former world champion figure skaters, two Chinese nationals, a group of friends who had been on a dunk-hunting trip and the crews of two aircraft.
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