Crews persevering with to seek for particles from the lethal collision of a passenger jet and Military helicopter close to Washington, D.C., used a airplane outfitted with lasers to scan the underside of the Potomac River early Saturday, the Nationwide Transportation Security Board mentioned.
Giant items of the jetliner and helicopter, together with the stays of all 67 victims, had been recovered final week. Crews will spend the approaching days in search of smaller particles earlier than ending the work in a few week.
A airplane operated by the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and geared up with laser scanning know-how flew at low altitudes over the crash web site. The lasers are used to penetrate the river’s floor and map the riverbed.
“All major pieces” of the 2 plane have been discovered, and investigators will study them for any markings that would reveal the angle of the collision, in line with a Nationwide Transportation Security Board assertion launched Saturday afternoon.
The company mentioned info collected can be a part of its ongoing investigation into the Jan. 29 collision between the Military helicopter and an American Airways flight. There have been no survivors.
President Donald Trump on Thursday blamed the collision on what he known as an “obsolete” laptop system utilized by U.S. air visitors controllers and vowed to interchange it.
Nationwide Transportation Security Board officers instructed members of Congress that the helicopter’s superior surveillance know-how, which transmits plane location and different information to air visitors management and different plane, was turned off, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz mentioned Thursday.
Investigators are additionally trying into the altitude of the airplane and helicopter, together with whether or not the chopper was above its 200-foot flight ceiling.
The crash was the deadliest within the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed right into a New York Metropolis neighborhood simply after takeoff, killing all 260 folks on board and 5 on the bottom.