Black boxes recovered in tragic D.C. aviation collision
The second black box of the Bombardier CRJ-700 passenger plane, which collided with a military helicopter near the airport in Washington on Wednesday and fell into the Potomac River, has been found, American media reported on Thursday.
Earlier, media in the USA reported that divers had found one black box—the cockpit voice recorder. Then, the National Transportation Safety Board announced that the flight data recorder had been found.
The second black box of the plane was found
Both black boxes were retrieved from the water, but according to experts, their condition allows for examination of the records they contain.
On Wednesday late evening, the Bombardier CRJ-700 passenger plane of American Airlines, operated by PSA Airlines, flying from Wichita, collided with a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter just in front of the runway of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington.
On board the passenger plane were 64 people, including four crew members, while the helicopter carried three soldiers. All those on board the aircrafts perished, totaling 67 people.
President Trump commented on the tragedy
"The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn. Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane. This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!!!" wrote Donald Trump on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The President's comments were based on recordings of the accident and the dialogue between the helicopter pilot and the air traffic control tower. Before the disaster, the controller alerted the pilot to the approaching plane, asking if he saw it and requesting a distance to be maintained. The pilot confirmed that he saw the aircraft.
This is the first commercial airplane disaster in the USA since 2009, when a Colgan Air plane crashed near Buffalo, killing 49 people. However, it is not the first incident of a plane crashing into the Potomac. In 1982, an Air Florida plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Reagan Airport, hitting a bridge over the river.
