ARLINGTON, Va. >> A midair collision between an Army helicopter and a jetliner killed all 67 people aboard the two aircraft, officials said Thursday, as they scrutinized the actions of the military pilot in the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane, agency spokesperson Peter Knudson said. They were at the agency’s labs for evaluation.

At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River. The helicopter apparently flew into the path of the American Airlines regional jet late Wednesday while it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, just across the river from Washington, officials said. The plane carried 60 passengers and four crew. Three soldiers were aboard the helicopter.

“We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” said John Donnelly, the fire chief in the nation’s capital.

The plane was found upside-down in three sections in waist-deep water, and first responders were searching miles of the Potomac, Donnelly said. The helicopter wreckage was also found. Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.

American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the plane was making a normal approach when “the military aircraft came into the path” of the jet.

Officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kan.

One air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes when the collision happened, according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration obtained by The Associated Press. Those duties are often shared by two people, but the airport typically combines the separate roles at 9:30 p.m, once traffic begins to slow down. The supervisor in the tower directed they be combined earlier.

“The position configuration was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” the report said. A person familiar with the matter, however, said the tower staffing on Wednesday night was at a normal level.

The positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks, during shift changes or when air traffic is slow, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.

The FAA has long struggled with a shortage of air traffic controllers.

Air crash investigations can take months, and federal investigators told reporters they would not speculate on what caused the collision.

Experienced crew

A top Army aviation official said the Black Hawk crew was “very experienced” and familiar with the congested flying that occurs daily around Washington.

“Both pilots had flown this specific route before, at night. This wasn’t something new to either one of them,” said Jonathan Koziol, chief of staff for Army aviation.

The helicopter’s maximum allowed altitude at the time of the crash was 200 feet above ground, Koziol said. It was not immediately clear whether the helicopter exceeded that limit, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that altitude seemed to be a factor in the collision.

Koziol said investigators need to analyze the flight data before making conclusions about altitude.

Trump casts blame

President Donald Trump told a White House news conference that no one survived.

Trump opened the news conference Thursday with a moment of silence honoring the victims, calling it an “hour of anguish” for the country.

But he spent most of his time casting political blame, lashing out at former President Joe Biden’s administration and diversity efforts at the FAA, saying they had led to slipping standards — even as he acknowledged that the cause of the crash was unknown.

Without evidence, Trump blamed air traffic controllers, the helicopter pilots and Democratic policies at federal agencies. He claimed the FAA was “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative.”

Trump said warnings issued to the helicopter should have come earlier, but emphasized that “the people in the helicopter should have seen where they were going.” Referring to the airplane’s path, he added: “What was a helicopter doing in that track?”

But the president cited no evidence, and admitted when pressed that the investigation had only just begun.

When asked how he could say that diversity hiring was to blame for the crash even though basic facts about the midair collision were still being sought by investigators, he said, “Because I have common sense.”

“For some jobs, we need the highest level of genius,” he said.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who was sworn in earlier this week, said there were “early indicators of what happened.” He declined to elaborate.

Inside Reagan National Airport, the mood was somber Thursday as stranded passengers waited for flights to resume, sidestepping camera crews and staring out the terminal’s windows at the Potomac, where recovery efforts were barely visible in the distance.

Aster Andemicael had been at the airport since Wednesday evening with her elderly father, who was flying to Indiana to visit family.

She spent much of the long night thinking about the victims and their families.

Flights resumed at the airport around midday.

Deadliest plane crash since 2001

Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, N.Y, just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard and five people on the ground.

The last major fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, N.Y. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, along with one person on the ground, bringing the total death toll to 50.

Experts often highlight that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe. The National Safety Council estimates that Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash, while deaths on airplanes are too rare to calculate the odds. Figures from the Department of Transportation tell a similar story.

Passengers on Wednesday’s flight included a group of figure skaters, their coaches and family members who were returning from a development camp that followed the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.

In Wichita

The crash devastated Wichita, the Kansas city that prides itself on being in America’s heartland. It hosted the figure skating championships this year for the first time.

The city has been a major hub for the aircraft industry since the early days of commercial flight, and it is home to the U.S. headquarters for Bombardier, which manufactured the jetliner. So many regional workers have jobs tied to the industry that the area economy slumps when sales dip.

After the crash, several hundred people gathered in the city council chambers for a prayer vigil led by Mayor Lily Wu and religious leaders.

“We will get through this, but the only way we will get through this is together,” said the Rev. Pamela Hughes Mason of St. Paul AME Church.

Tightly controlled airspace

The FAA said the midair crash occurred before 9 p.m. EST in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over 3 miles south of the White House and the Capitol.

Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 400 feet and a speed of about 140 mph when it rapidly lost altitude over the Potomac, according to data from its radio transponder. The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-700 twin-engine jet, manufactured in 2004, can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.

A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National, and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. Flight-tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway.

Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter crew if it had the arriving plane in sight.

“PAT25,” the controller said, using the call sign for the Black Hawk, “Do you have the CRJ in sight?”

A crewmember said the aircraft was in sight and requested “visual separation” — allowing it to fly closer than otherwise might be allowed if pilots did not see the plane. Controllers approved the request.

The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25, pass behind the CRJ.”

Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.

This report contains information from the New York Times.