ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) 鈥� Salvage crews have removed a large portion of a commercial jet from the Potomac River near Washington鈥檚 Reagan National Airport on Monday, five days after a midair collision last week that killed 67 people.
Authorities have said the operation to remove the plane will take several days and they will then work to remove the military helicopter involved in the crash.
The crash between the American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter over Washington D.C. on Wednesday was the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001.
Authorities 55 of the 67 people killed in the crash and Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly has said they are confident all will be found. Crews early Monday could be seen aboard a vessel with a crane.
More than 300 responders were at any given time, officials said. Two Navy barges were also deployed to lift heavy wreckage.
Divers and salvage workers are adhering to strict protocols and will stop moving debris if a body is found, Col. Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday. The 鈥渄ignified recovery鈥� of remains takes precedence over all else, he said.
Portions of that collided over the river Wednesday night near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport 鈥� an American Airlines jet with 64 people aboard and an Army Black Hawk helicopter with 3 aboard 鈥� are being loaded onto flatbed trucks and will be taken to a hangar for investigation.
The crash occurred when the jet, en route from , was about to land. The Black Hawk was on a training mission. There were no survivors.
On Sunday, family members were taken in buses with a police escort to the Potomac River bank near where the two aircraft came to rest after colliding.
The plane鈥檚 passengers from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita and a group of hunters returning from a guided trip. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O鈥橦ara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and , of Durham, North Carolina, were in the helicopter.
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鈥檚 crash was the 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.
Experts stress that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, but the crowded airspace around Reagan Airport .
The NTSB said Saturday that preliminary data showed about the altitudes of the airliner and the helicopter.
Investigators also said that about a second before impact, the jet鈥檚 flight recorder showed a change in its pitch. But they did not say whether that change in angle meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive maneuver to avoid the crash.
Data from the jet鈥檚 flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet (99 meters), plus or minus 25 feet (7.6 meters), when the crash happened, NTSB officials told reporters. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk at 200 feet (61 meters), the maximum allowed altitude for helicopters in the area.
The discrepancy has yet to be explained.
Investigators said they hoped to reconcile the difference with data from the helicopter鈥檚 and planned to refine the tower data, which can be less reliable.
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Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed reporting.
David R. Martin, Michael R. Sisak And Claudia Lauer, The Associated Press
