Crews persevering with to seek for particles from the lethal collision of a passenger jet and Military helicopter close to Washington used a aircraft outfitted with lasers to scan the underside of the Potomac River early Saturday, the Nationwide Transportation Security Board mentioned.
Giant items of the jetliner and helicopter together with the stays of all 67 victims already have been recovered earlier this week and crews now will spend the approaching days in search of smaller particles earlier than ending the work in a few week.
A aircraft operated by the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and outfitted with laser scanning know-how flew at low altitudes over the crash website. The lasers are used to penetrate the river’s floor and map the riverbed.
“All main items” of the 2 plane have been discovered, and investigators will study them for any markings that might reveal the angle of the collision, in accordance with an NTSB assertion launched Saturday afternoon.
The NTSB mentioned data collected shall be a part of its ongoing investigation into the Jan. 29 collision between the Military helicopter and an American Airways flight over Washington, D.C. There have been no survivors.
President Donald Trump on Thursday blamed the collision on what he known as an “out of date” laptop system utilized by U.S. air site visitors controllers and vowed to switch it.
NTSB officers instructed members of Congress that the helicopter’s superior surveillance know-how, which transmits plane location and different knowledge to air site visitors management and different plane, was turned off, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz mentioned Thursday.
Investigators are additionally wanting into the altitude of the aircraft and helicopter, together with whether or not the chopper was above its 200-foot (61-meter) flight ceiling. Investigators want to have the ability to study the wreckage of the Black Hawk to get extra exact data.
The crash was the deadliest within the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed right into a New York Metropolis neighborhood simply after takeoff, killing all 260 folks on board and 5 on the bottom.
