Emergency response units search the crash site of the American Airlines plane on the Potomac River on Jan. 30.Photo:
Alex Wong/Getty
The remaining bodies of those who died in the recent Washington, D.C., plane crash will likely not be immediately recovered.
Washington, D.C., Fire Chief John Donnelly said that the remaining bodies will not be recovered until officials can hoist the plane out of the bed of the Potomac River while speaking to reporters during a press conference on Saturday, Feb. 1, according to BBC News.
PEOPLE reached out to the Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS Department for further information on Feb. 1, but did not receive an immediate response.
A total of 67 people perished when American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in mid-air near Reagan National Airport on Wednesday, Jan. 29. There were 60 passengers and four crew members aboard the plane as well as three soldiers on board the helicopter. There were no survivors.
As of Friday, Jan 31, the remains of 41 victims had been recovered, and 28 of those victims have been positively identified, per BBC.
Passengers on the plane included mothers and children, teen figure skaters returning from skating camp in Kansas, and a group of adult friends returning from a hunting trip.
While the cause of the crash is unknown, aviation experts suspect that the Army helicopter did not see the plane before the deadly collision.
“I guarantee it was basically pilot error,” an active duty Army helicopter pilot, who did not want to be identified, previously told us ?,
The pilot, who has investigated helicopter collisions in the past, explained: “The Black Hawk accepted responsibility for the separation of traffic. That means, they would monitor and address the flight paths themselves. The Black Hawk asked for ‘visual separation,’ meaning, ‘We got this.’ “
Laurie Garrow, a professor and director of the Air Transportation Lab at Georgia Tech, said she did not believe the Black Hawk pilot saw the plane before the crash, and she also noted that the airspace lanes near Reagan National are “very narrow.”
“In DC […] we have a lot of buildings that are close by the airport. So when you take off, you have to climb at a certain altitude or do some very quick turns to be able to avoid the tall buildings and also sensitive areas,” she explained to PEOPLE. “You can’t fly over the White House, can’t fly over memorials and malls. So it’s very common that aircraft are going on the Potomac, but that probably also creates more congestion and things to manage, particularly if you’re mixing commercial and military operations.”
