Flight recorders recovered in DCA crash

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Thursday it recovered flight data recorders, known as black boxes, from the aircraft involved in the deadly midair collision near Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) earlier this week.

“NTSB investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane involved in yesterday’s mid-air collision at DCA,” the NTSB revealed in a post on social platform X. “The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation.”

Response teams have been working to recover evidence from the Potomac River after an American Airlines passenger plane and Army Black Hawk helicopter conducting a training flight collided outside of Washington, D.C., Wednesday evening. The NTSB is leading the probe into the crash that likely killed 67 people — 64 from the plane, including passengers and crew, and the three soldiers on the helicopter — making it the deadliest aviation accident in nearly 24 years.

As of Friday morning, officials told The Hill’s partner NewsNation that 41 bodies have been recovered.

“Our investigative team will be on scene as long as it takes in order to obtain all of the perishable evidence and all the fact finding that is needed to bring us to a conclusion of probable cause,” Brice Banning, a senior aviation accident investigator, told reporters during a press briefing. 

“Our mission is to understand not just what happened, but why it happened and to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again,” Banning continued. “Since we’re just beginning our investigation, we don’t have a great deal of information to share right now.”

Officials say they hope to release a preliminary report of the accident within 30 days. Investigators noted that they will evaluate human error, machine failure and environmental factors that may have caused the midair collision. 

No survivors were recovered from the crash.

Updated at 10:44 a.m. EST