American Airlines wreckage pulled from Potomac as eerie photo shows chopper in watery grave
Authorities began pulling the wreckage of doomed American Airlines Flt.5342 from the Potomac River on Monday — as most of the bodies of the 67 people who died in the tragedy were recovered.Photos show the US Army Corps of Engineers using a crane to lift one of the plane’s massive turbines from the waves and deposit it on a flatbed barge near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in DC.The crane also hoisted the shattered pieces of the fuselage of the passenger jet, which slammed into an army Black Hawk helicopter before crashing into the Potomac around 8:45 p.m.
Wednesday.In addition, aerial photos released by the National Transportation Safety Board showed the chopper lying in its shallow, watery grave — as submerged parts of the doomed plane lay nearby.The Army Corps said it is salvaging the jet first, a job that should take about three days.Officials have recovered the bodies of 55 of the 67 people who died in the midair collision but say they need to raise the jet’s remains to retrieve the rest, NBC reported.Afterward, authorities will retrieve the fallen Black Hawk.
The bodies of the three soldiers in the fated chopper have already been recovered.“All salvage operations are completed in close coordination with Unified Command to ensure the dignified recovery of missing flight passengers, personnel,” the Army Corps wrote online.“Should any remains be located, an automatic work stoppage would begin until proper coordination with appropriate authorities.”Washington Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said at a Sunday news conference, “We’re going to recover everyone.“If we knew where they were, though, we would already have them out, so 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.”The salvage operation — made more difficult by the river’s dark, opaque waters — should last until about Feb.
12, depending on the weather and tides...