Army helicopter, plane crash: Plane wreckage removal begins

After they are finished collecting all of the pieces from the jet, they will then remove the Army Black Hawk helicopter that crashed into the plane.

The salvage operation should be done by Feb. 12, but is “contingent upon priority of lifts, requirements for offload, cataloging of wreckage, weather and tidal considerations,” the Corps said.

The plane and helicopter pieces will be loaded onto a flatbed truck and taken to a hanger for investigators to examine, The Associated Press reported. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, hopes to have a preliminary report within 30 days.

They hope with the removal of the wreckage the rest of the people killed in the Jan. 29 mid-air incident. As of Sunday 55 of the 67 people killed had been recovered and identified, the AP reported.

Officials said that drivers have been conducting searches in near-zero visibility in frigid water combing through sharp pieces of debris, CNN reported.

If a body is found while the wreckage is being removed, the salvage work will be paused until a “dignified recovery” is conducted to remove the remains, the AP reported.

“We have some work to do as this salvage operation goes on, and we will absolutely stay here and search until such point as we have everybody,” DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said on Sunday, CNN reported.

The crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a plane crashed into a neighborhood in New York City just after takeoff. In that crash, 260 people on the plane and another five people on the ground were killed.