Salvage crews pull jet engine, wing from Potomac River crash site

Salvage crews have recovered an engine and large pieces of fuselage and are working to retrieve a wing from the wreckage of a commercial airliner involved in last week’s midair collision near Washington’s Reagan National Airport, officials said Monday.

They also recovered more human remains from the Potomac River, although they declined to offer specifics, reiterating only that 55 of the 67 victims have been found and identified since the crash Wednesday.

Authorities have said the operation to remove the plane will take several days and they will then work to remove the military helicopter involved. The crash between the American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter over Washington D.C. was the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001.

More than 300 responders were taking part in the recovery effort at any given time, officials said. Two Navy barges were also deployed to lift heavy wreckage.

Portions of the two aircraft that collided over the river Wednesday night near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport — an American Airlines jet with 64 people aboard and an Army Black Hawk helicopter with 3 aboard — are being loaded onto flatbed trucks and will be taken to a hangar for investigation. Crews hoped to recover the jet’s cockpit on Tuesday, Pera said.

Federal investigators were working to piece together the events that led to the collision. Full investigations typically take a year or more. Investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.

Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.



(AP Photo Jose Luis Magana)