Congress, agencies promise investigations into Wednesday airline crash
Kansas Senators express their condolences
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - State, local and federal agencies are continuing to search for answers in the first major commercial airline crash since 2009.
An American Airlines flight collided with a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter outside Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC.
The recovery effort remains here in the icy Potomac River – but none of the 67 involved in the crash survived.
The federal government promises to make reforms to avoid repeating this tragedy.
Many questions and few answers as to what went wrong to cause a mid-air collision that left an American Airlines flight from Kansas in three pieces outside Reagan National Airport.
Pete Hegseth is the newly sworn-in Secretary of Defense
“There was some some sort of an elevation issue. That we have immediately begun investigating at the DoD and Army level. Army CID is on the ground investigating, top tier aviation assets inside the DoD are investigating.”
Three Army solders perished from the Blackhawk helicopter involved in the crash.
Several of the 60 engers aboard American Airlines Flight 5432 were in the figure skating community.
Senator Jerry Moran was ed by his colleague, fellow Kansas Republican and Senator Roger Marshall in expressing the states' condolences.
“We express our sadness, the circumstances that families across the country are in. We are thankful for the efforts to try to save lives last night. But we know there’s a lot of people in our home state that are grieving and sad.”
The Department of Transportation says Americans need to feel safe when they take to the skies.
Sean Duffy was sworn in as Department of Transportation Secretary just hours before the accident.
“We are going to take responsibility, at the Department of Transportation and the FAA to make sure we have the reforms that have been dictated by President Trump in place to make sure that these mistakes do not happen again and again.”
The National Transportation Safety Board is taking the lead in the investigation. J. Todd Inman is a key member of the NTSB board.
“Our investigative team will be on the scene as long as it takes to find all the perishable evidence and all the fact-finding that is needed to bring us to a conclusion of probable cause.”
The search and recovery efforts continue through a second night. Three soldiers were on the Blackhawk helicopter, while 64 person were on the American Airlines flight.
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