Crews Move Closer to Recovering All Bodies in D.C. Crash

The authorities have drawn closer to finding and identifying all victims of the midair collision last week between a commercial jet and an Army helicopter just outside Washington, D.C., officials said at a news briefing on Sunday.

John Donnelly, the chief of Washington’s fire and emergency medical services department, said that remains of 55 of the 67 victims had been recovered and positively identified. He added that though officials involved in the recovery operation did not yet know where all of the remaining victims were, he was confident that they would be found.

“We have some work to do as the salvage operation goes on,” he said. “We will absolutely stay here and search until such point as we have everybody.”

Earlier on Sunday, relatives of people killed in the accident gathered alongside the Potomac River at Reagan National Airport for a private memorial. The event was organized by the federal agency that is investigating the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board, with the support of other federal, state and local agencies.

At the news briefing, officials said that at first light on Monday morning, salvage teams from the Army Corps of Engineers would begin the process of lifting the wreckage of American Airlines Flight 5342 from the Potomac an operation that is expected to take three days.

Col. Frances Pera of the Corps of Engineers said the crews would take great care in the salvage work, knowing that it could reveal the bodies of some of those who are still missing. There were 64 people aboard the jet and three in the helicopter.

Colonel Pera said that some victims were found when divers closely examined the wreckage to prepare for Monday’s lifting operation.

“During our surveys, for instance, yesterday, they were able to identify 11 separate human remains as part of this effort,” he said. “Should any remains be found during our process,” he added, “an automatic work stoppage happens.” The agencies that are responsible for handling remains would then step in and do their work before the recovery operation resumed.

Once the wreckage of the plane is lifted from the river, Colonel Pera said, it will be placed on a flatbed trailer and taken to a hangar to be studied as part of the investigation into the crash.

The dive teams that have been surveying the wreckage and preparing for the lifting operation on Monday are from the same Navy unit that was involved in the response to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore last spring, Colonel Pera said.

The waters of the Potomac are very cold. One diver working for the Washington metro police department was taken to a hospital for “a hypothermia situation,” but was doing well, Chief Donnelly said.

After the plane is retrieved, crews will turn their attention to lifting from the river the wreckage of the Army Black Hawk helicopter involved in the crash. Officials said they expected the entire recovery operation, including the lifting of large wreckage and the clearance of remaining debris, to be completed by Feb. 12.