As The Death Toll Increases, Rescue Crews Describe The “Horrors” They Witnessed Underwater While Attempting To Recover The Remains Of American Airlines Disaster Victims
The bodies of those killed in last week’s DC aircraft crash are still being sought.
On Wednesday, January 29, a 64-person American Airlines aircraft and an Army chopper 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 had been recovered from the water as of this writing.
It has been said that the rescue teams are operating in “tough” conditions.
Matthew Schanck, an international maritime Search and Rescue & Emergency Response Expert, told BBC News, “There’s ice in the river, it’s particularly cold and that makes it very challenging to [rescue] crews.”
“There’s not a lot of time to really try and locate any survivors and rescue them because of the cold.”
One diver from the Metropolitan Police Department had to be taken to the hospital for treatment of a “hypothermia situation” because to the extremely chilly waters.
According to Washington DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly, the diver in issue has since been freed and is “doing fine.”
“We’re happy to report that he’s doing fine, and that that’s the only injury we have the today,” the chief shared, as per NBC News.
He added yesterday (February 2): “For the rest of the day, the salvage crews are continuing to survey the site and get ready for tomorrow.”
Rescue workers have spoken out about the ‘horrors’ they have witnessed thus far in other places.
A firefighter informed Brian Entin of NewsNation that they were all “emotionally wiped out after seeing the horror [of the crash] up close.”
In a follow-up tweet, Entin went on to share, “The firefighter I met explained that the water is actually very clear. With flashlights, they saw horrible things when they arrived.”
Although there are still many unanswered questions regarding the events leading up to last week’s deadly disaster, officials are hopeful that the two aircraft black boxes will help them piece the tragedy together.
Speaking about the importance of the devices, senior Army aviation adviser Jonathan Koziol said: “There’s 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.
