FAMILIES of the victims of the mid-air collision over Washington between a plane and a military helicopter visited the crash site on Sunday, walking along the bank of the River Potomac, near Washington, DC.
All 64 people on board the American Airlines jet, and three personnel on the army Black Hawk helicopter, died in the collision on Wednesday evening. Among the victims were young ice skaters, their coaches, and members of their family, who were returning from an event in Wichita, Kansas. The plane was just minutes away from landing when the collision occurred.
On Sunday evening, it was reported that the bodies of 55 of the 67 victims had been recovered and searches were continuing to find the remaining 12.
Shortly after the incident, a Roman Catholic parish priest, Fr Frederick Edlefsen, rushed to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to be with waiting families. He said in a TV interview afterwards: “A tragedy like this not only provokes grief, but it’s a very intimate grief. It was probably one of the most intense grief moments and situations I’ve ever seen in my own almost 24 years of priesthood.”
An artist, Robert Marquez, has erected 67 crosses close the scene. He drove from his home in Texas to create the memorial.
Prayers have been said for the victims and their families. The Dean of Washington National Cathedral, the Very Revd Randy Hollerith, said on Thursday: “Today, many families are experiencing profound grief, their lives for ever changed by this tragedy. We hold in prayer all those who were waiting to welcome loved ones, friends, and colleagues who will never return. We remember and give thanks for our fallen army personnel who train under the cover of night to protect us.”
The Pope sent a message to President Trump, in which he commended “the souls of the deceased to the loving mercy of Almighty God, and offers his deepest sympathies to the families who are now mourning the loss of a loved one”.
The crash was the deadliest air crash for nearly 25 years in the United States. Investigators are still trying to retrieve black-box data to find out the cause.
A second air crash in the US occurred on Friday, involving an air ambulance in Philadelphia. All six people on board, including a child returning home to Mexico after receiving life-saving treatment in the US, were killed, as was at least one person on the ground.