Work is continuing in the Potomac River to recover bodies from Wednesday's midair collision between an American Airlines plane and an Army helicopter. CBS News correspondent Skyler Henry has more.

Washington

A regional jet carrying 64 people collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter while on approach to Reagan National Airport near Washington, DC.

D.C. Crash

Officials are working diligently to recover bodies from the Potomac River following a midair collision between an American Airlines plane and an Army helicopter. The fuselage, which broke into three parts upon impact, poses significant challenges to recovery efforts. Experts note the need to remove the fuselage to enable thorough searching of the area. A substantial portion of the river has already been examined, and search teams are confident in locating additional remains near the fuselage debris.

The investigation into the incident raises questions about the safety and congestion of the airspace at Reagan National Airport. Concerns have been expressed about near-miss incidents and regulatory oversight. While the Vice President of the airport redirected safety concerns to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), this matter is set to be addressed by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and lawmakers.

The crash has sparked debates about military training activities in the area and the adequacy of air traffic control staffing and funding. Officials plan to evaluate airspace management and consider improvements to prevent similar incidents. The review will involve multiple agencies and may include changes in personnel practices to enhance air traffic control operations.



Officials working to recover bodies from D.C. plane crash

Yeah, and we will get a bit of details as far as the breakdown on the recovery process. What many experts have said is that the fuselage itself would have to be removed and put onto either a barge or some sort of apparatus that could get it out of the way, quite frankly, so that the recovery process can continue. The chief also said that they have searched a pretty significant portion of the river already and I think based off of what they have been able to find up until this point, they feel pretty confident as to the rest of the remains being perhaps under or close to where the parts of the fuselage may be. Remember, officials said that at least upon initial impact, it broke into three pieces and so there are certainly challenges with moving around. We expect to get more details on that process tomorrow as they continue to work through this recovery effort. I thought that several questions were interesting to specifically the VP of the airport and you sort of sidestepped those questions and referred us to the FAA, referred journalists to the FAA. But one of the questions was, have you ever raised concerns about the crowded airspace with the FAA? His response was that safety was one of our top priorities, but that reporter continued to press and said that, but there have been near misses. Did you bring that up with the FAA? What was the response? Yeah, it was a yes or no question and it was answered that you would have to take that up with the FAA. The concerns about the congestion would have to be taken up with federal lawmakers as well. And that is something that we have heard for the last several days. And so really this is going to be something that we will continue to press. The NTSB has indicated that they will be answering some of those questions as well as part of this investigation. And really these are going to be questions that lawmakers raise as well. Several of whom not only raise their concerns about the congestion here at Reagan National Airport, but as it relates to military training and rehearsals and practices and missions that happen in this region as well, and whether that should continue or should they try to do something else moving forward given the amount of concerns that have brewed up in this entire airport airspace for the last several years. And so there is going to be a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of questions asked, I should say, for several different officials, for the FAA, for NTSB, for lawmakers as they try to decide how they're going to move forward. There should also going to be a lot of questions raised as well about what happens personnel wise as it relates to air traffic control. That is going to be something else that I think a lot of people will be curious about as it relates to staffing. We know that for years there have been concerns around air traffic control staffing in and out of those towers, some of whom saying that they have to work around the conditions presented to them, and that's funding and that's personnel. And so they say that they are going to have to do several different things in order to try to figure out what those best practices might have to be given the strains on the system as it currently presents. And so I think there is going to be a big review process in all aspects of this to try to make sure that something like what happened earlier this week.

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