All 67 people on board an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter that collided on Wednesday evening over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., just three miles from the White House, were killed, officials said.
Rescue crews have recovered about two dozen bodies from the icy water of the river.
The collision was the first fatal crash involving a major U.S. airline in more than 15 years. The night was clear, and both aircraft were following standard flight paths, officials said. But roughly a minute after the helicopter crew told air traffic control that it could see the jet, the two collided. A webcam caught the moment of impact.
An internal report found that staffing at the air traffic control tower was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” and it suggested that at the time of the collision the air traffic controller was doing a job usually handled by two people. But Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, said communications appeared to have been normal.
