“All major pieces” of the American Airlines plane and Black Hawk helicopter that collided in mid-air in Washington DC have been recovered.
Safety officials confirmed the development following the crash on January 29 that left 67 people dead and both aircrafts in the Potomac River. The bodies of the 67 have all been recovered, along with the black boxes from both the helicopter and airliner.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said lasers were used to scan the bottom of the Potomac River early on Saturday.
A plane operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and equipped with laser scanning technology flew at low altitudes over the crash site. The lasers are used to penetrate the river’s surface and map the riverbed.
The recovered parts will now be examined for any markings that could reveal the angle of the collision, reports Mirror.
"Investigators will be looking for witness marks on the aircraft that could provide clues to the angle of collision,” the NTSB said.
Crews are now expected to recover smaller pieces of debris with work to continue over the next week.
President Donald Trump had blamed diversity hiring programmes for the crash in the immediate aftermath, but later blamed an “obsolete” computer system used by US air traffic controllers and said it would be replaced.
“It’s amazing that it happened,” Trump said during a speech at the national prayer breakfast at the US Capitol.
“And I think that’s going to be used for good. I think what is going to happen is we’re all going to sit down and do a great computerised system for our control towers. Brand new – not pieced together, obsolete.”
Trump said the US spent billions of dollars trying to “renovate an old, broken system” instead of investing in a new one.
Federal officials have been raising concerns about an overtaxed and understaffed air traffic control system for years, especially after a series of close calls between planes at US airports.
Among the reasons they have cited for staffing shortages are uncompetitive pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirements.
Trump said that if the nation had a newer system, alarms would have sounded when the Black Hawk helicopter, which was on a training exercise, reached the same altitude as the plane.
But an FAA report after the crash said that the controller did get an alert that the plane and helicopter were converging when they were still more than a mile apart.
The controller responded by asking the helicopter if it had the plane in sight and directed the helicopter to pass behind the plane. The helicopter responded that it did have the plane in sight.
NTSB officials told members of Congress that the helicopter’s advanced surveillance technology, which transmits aircraft location and other data to air traffic control and other aircraft, was turned off, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz said on Thursday.
The crash, which involved an American Airlines flight inbound from Wichita, Kansas, was the deadliest air disaster in the US since November 2001 when a jet slammed into a New York City neighbourhood just after take off killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.
