THE HORROR DISCOVERED UNDERWATER BY RESCUE TEAM OF AMERICAN AIRLINES CRASH
On Wednesday, January 29, a 64-person American Airlines aircraft and an Army helicopter carrying three soldiers collided. Rescue crews are still trying to recover the dead after the two planes crashed into the Potomac River. Of the 67 fatalities, 55 have been recovered from the water as of this writing. The search for the bodies of those who died in the DC plane crash last week continues.
It has been said that the rescue teams are operating in "tough" conditions. International Maritime Search and Rescue & Emergency Response Expert Matthew Schanck told BBC News: "It's really difficult to [rescue] crews because of the ice in the river and the extreme cold. "Because of the cold, there's not much time to try and locate any survivors and rescue them." One diver from the Metropolitan Police Department had to be taken to the hospital for treatment of a "hypothermia situation" due to the extremely cold waters. According to Washington DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly, the diver in question has since been freed and is "doing fine."
According to NBC News, the chief stated, "We're happy to report that he's doing fine and that that's the only injury we have the day." "For the remainder of the day, the salvage crews are continuing to survey the site and get ready for tomorrow," he added yesterday, February 2. Rescue workers have also spoken out about the "horrors" they have witnessed thus far.
A firefighter told Brian Entin of NewsNation that they were all "emotionally wiped out after seeing the horror [of the crash] up close." "The firefighter I met explained that the water is actually very clear," Entin continued in a subsequent tweet. When they got there, they used flashlights to see terrible things.
Although there are still many unanswered questions regarding the events leading up to last week's deadly crash, officials are hopeful that the two aircraft black boxes will help them piece the tragedy together. "A lot of experts out there, but until we get the data from the black boxes, that’s the only truth, and we won’t know that for a little bit," Senior Army aviation adviser Jonathan Koziol said in reference to the significance of the devices.