US identifies bodies of 55 dead in Washington plane crash

In the United States were able to identify the bodies of 55 victims of the plane crash in Washington. This was reported on February 2 during a briefing by the head of the Department of Fire Protection and Emergency Medical Services of the District of Columbia John Donnelly.

He specified that the search for the bodies of the victims continues. Various American organizations are involved.

"We have a lot of work to do as the rescue operation continues, and we will certainly stay here and search until we find everyone," NBC News quoted Donnelly as saying.

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On the night of January 30, near Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., an American Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk military helicopter collided, after the crash they fell into the Potomac River. On board the civilian aircraft were 60 passengers and four crew members, on the helicopter - three military. US President Donald Trump reported the absence of survivors in the airplane crash in Washington.

On February 1, it became known that the bodies of three crew members of the military helicopter were recovered. There were three military personnel in the helicopter: sergeant Ryan Austin O'Hara, petty officer Andrew Loyd Ives and captain Rebecca Lobach.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were Russian citizens in the plane that crashed in Washington, D.C., and Russian figure skaters were on board. According to him, the US and Russia were in contact through diplomatic channels after the airplane crash. The Russian Embassy in Washington on February 1 reported that the U.S. State Department confirmed the data on the Russians Yevgenia Shishkova, Vadim Naumov and Inna Volyanskaya, who died in the crash.

Meanwhile, January 31, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board in the U.S. Todd Inman noted that it could take a year to establish the exact cause of the plane crash. In addition, he said that investigators had retrieved all the flight recorders (black boxes) from the crashed airplane and helicopter. According to him, the helicopter's recorders have been merged, and investigators are confident that they will also be able to obtain all the necessary data from them.