Donald Trump confirms ‘there are no survivors’ in devastating Washington DC plane crash | LIVE updates

“NTSB investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the Bombardier CRJ700 airplane involved in yesterday’s midair collision at DCA,” National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson Peter Knudson said, via AP. “The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation.”

President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum on aviation safety, claiming it will reverse the "harm" caused to federal agencies under the Biden administration. He also reiterated his belief that "incompetence" may have contributed to the crash.

On Thursday, reporters gathered at the White House for a press briefing. A reporter asked President Trump about his plans to visit a specific site. Trump responded, "I do have a plan to visit, but not the site. What is the site? Water? Are we going to go swimming?"

Many social media users condemned Trump's response as "callous" and "heartless."

Recovery operations have been paused until Friday morning after responders retrieved an additional eight bodies on Thursday. Four individuals have been located but are still trapped inside the plane, while two soldiers inside the helicopter have yet to be extricated. A crane is being brought in to assist with the operation, but it is expected to take 24 to 48 hours before it can be used, according to CNN. Fourteen victims are still unaccounted for.

American Airlines is set to resume its regional service from Wichita to Reagan National Airport on Friday, the airline confirmed to CNN.

The direct flight, which began operations on January 8, 2024, will operate daily.

One of the flight data recorders, commonly known as a black box, from the CRJ 700 that crashed after colliding with a military helicopter near Reagan National Airport has been recovered from the Potomac River, according to Washington Senator Maria Cantwell’s (D) office.

Authorities have recovered 40 complete bodies along with partial remains of others, according to a law enforcement source involved in the investigation, CBS reports. Some of the remains have washed ashore.

Investigators believe they have retrieved all the remains that are currently accessible but suspect more are still inside a section of the aircraft’s tail, which remains unreachable for now.

Recovery efforts will pause at dusk and resume at first light tomorrow. However, officials fear that some bodies may never be recovered, the source added.

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday directing Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies from the department. The move aims to reverse initiatives from the Biden and Obama administrations, which Trump referred to as "woke" policies.

Trump's directive comes after he suggested that DEI efforts could have played a role in Wednesday night's aircraft collision, though investigators have not identified a cause. Multiple agencies are still looking into the crash.

A group of Black lawmakers expressed their condolences for the lives lost in the D.C. plane collision while strongly criticizing Trump's remarks blaming diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts for the tragedy, AP reports.

“It is our hope that the outpour of condolences and support from people across our nation will bring solace during this season of bereavement,” said Rep. Yvette Clark, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “However, the opportunity to fully focus our sympathies on those who are in mourning and who may not have even retrieved their dearly departed was marred by a truly disgusting and disgraceful display of racist political prognostication.”

"We know they're there, they are underwater," NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said in a news briefing on Thursday.. "This is not unusual for the NTSB. We have many times recovered flight data recorders in water."

The NTSB plans to analyze the plane's flight data recorder at its nearby lab, while the helicopter's recorder will be reviewed by either the NTSB or the Department of Defense under a shared agreement. Once recovered, the data will help provide further details on the investigation.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman stated that there are currently no indications that emergency evacuation slides were deployed on the commercial plane after its crash into the Potomac River on Wednesday night.

“Right now, we’re going through the debris fields. Nothing we’ve seen would indicate that maybe slides or shoots were deployed,” he said. “It was a very quick, rapid impact.” He stressed that the NTSB still needs to verify this information.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a former Black Hawk pilot, torched President Trump after he suggested that Democrats' federal diversity and inclusion policies might be to blame for the crash.

"That's an attack on those pilots, and how dare he?" Duckworth told CBS News.

"How dare the commander in chief of the greatest military on the face of the earth attack the soldiers that just died last night by saying that he's implying that they were not qualified to do their jobs," Duckworth said.

"I am offended that the commander-in-chief of the United States military would actually say that about the soldiers he has sworn to lead. Shame on him," he added.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: According to two sources who spoke to CBS News, one air traffic control worker was managing both helicopters and planes from the Reagan National Airport tower at the time of the collision, a task typically handled by two people.

The New York Times was the first to report on the air traffic control staffing numbers. The Times stated that staffing at the tower was "not normal," based on a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration report.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced on Tuesday that their investigation into the deadly collision will examine the “human, machine, and the environment” to determine the cause.

“We will look at all the humans that were involved in this accident,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said during a news conference. “We will look at the aircraft, we will look at the helicopter and we will look at the environment in which they were operating in.”

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Preliminary FAA report on the collision revealed that the air traffic control tower staffing at Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) was “not normal” given the amount of air traffic and the time of day, per NBC News.

Typically, the tower has a controller dedicated solely to helicopter traffic. However, the source indicated that at the time of the crash, a single controller at DCA was managing both aeroplane and helicopter activity. FAA guidelines do permit the combining of these roles, allowing one controller to oversee both aeroplanes and helicopters.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Daniel Driscoll, President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Army, suggested on Thursday that the Army might need to cease flight training near congested urban airports such as Reagan National Airport.

Speaking at a Senate Armed Services hearing regarding his nomination, Driscoll stated that the Army would need to evaluate “where is an appropriate time to take training risk, and it may not be near an airport like Reagan.”

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Samuel Lilley, one of the pilots of the American Airlines jet that collided midair with a military Black Hawk helicopter, has been confirmed as a victim, according to his father, who spoke to CNN.

“I was so proud when Sam became a pilot,” Timothy Lilley shared in a Facebook post on Thursday. “Now it hurts so bad I can’t even cry myself to sleep. I know I’ll see him again but my heart is breaking.”

Timothy Lilley described his son, who was engaged and due to be married in the fall, as “doing great in his career and his personal life.”

“It is so devastating to lose someone that is loved so much,” Lilley said.

“This is undoubtedly the worst day of my life,” he told FOX 5 Atlanta.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Army official Jonathan Koziol, a retired CW5 aviation expert, reported that the instructor pilot on the US Army Black Hawk helicopter, which was conducting a training mission over the Potomac on Wednesday, had approximately 1,000 flight hours. The copilot, who was being evaluated, had around 500 flight hours.

Koziol noted that both pilots are considered experienced, given that Black Hawk training missions typically last around two hours each.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Federal Aviation Administration officials informed lawmakers that first responders have not yet retrieved the cockpit voice recorder or the flight data recorder, commonly known as the black boxes, from the CRJ-700 aircraft that collided with a military helicopter before plunging into the Potomac River.

This information was shared during a call where the government agency briefed members of Congress, according to two sources familiar with the call.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: On Wednesday evening, a tragic incident unfolded as a plane carrying 60 passengers from Kansas collided with a Black Hawk military helicopter while approaching Washington D.C.'s airport runway. The crash near DCA has sparked an outpouring of support from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who quickly released statements offering their condolences and backing to those affected by the devastating event…Read more.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said the midair collision between a passenger plane and an Army helicopter “shouldn’t have happened” and promised that it would “not happen again.”

“It should not have happened,” Duffy stressed. “When Americans take off in airplanes, they should expect to land at their destination – that didn’t happen yesterday. That’s not acceptable, and so we will not accept excuses.”

“We will not accept passing the buck. 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,” Duffy added.

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Donald Trump seemingly blamed FAA's “diversity push” for the horrific collision. “The FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing,” the president told reporters on Thursday, per CNN.

“FAA says people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce said ‘they want them in, and they want them, they can be air traffic controllers. I don’t think so. This was January 14, so that was a week before I entered office. They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA’s program,” Trump added.

When asked why he thought “diversity push” was to blame for the accident that is believed to have claimed the lives of all 67 people on board the American Airlines jet and the Black Hawk chopper, Trump said, “It just could have been. We have a high standard. We’ve had a higher, much higher standard than anybody else.”

Trump did not cite any evidence for his claim. As reporters pressed him on the topic again, the president said, “Because I have common sense, OK, and unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said during the White House press briefing on Thursday that a “mistake was made” in the lead-up to the horrific collision that is believed to have claimed the lives of all 67 people aboard the American Airlines jet and the Black Hawk helicopter.

While Hegseth did place the blame on anyone, he said, “The military does dangerous things. It does routine things on a regular basis. Tragically, last night, a mistake was made,” reported CNN.

The secretary explained that the chopper was carrying three soldiers who were on a “routine annual training of night flights on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission.”

“There was some … sort of an elevation issue that we have immediately begun investigating at the DOD and Army level,” Hegseth said, adding, “No excuses. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: Donald Trump blamed former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden for “horrible” aviation policies. During Thursday's White House press briefing, the president said, “We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system.” “I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary.”

“When I arrived in 2016, I made that change very early on, because I always felt this was a job that, and other jobs too, but this was a job that had to be superior intelligence, and we didn’t really have that. And we had it,” Trump went on, per CNN. “And then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before.”

Washington DC plane crash LIVE updates: During the White House press briefing on Thursday, Donald Trump appointed an acting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) commissioner.

“I'm immediately appointing an acting commissioner to the FAA, Christopher Rocheleau, a 22-year veteran of the agency, highly respected,” the president said, adding, “We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system.”