Crews lift first wreckage from DC plane crash out of Potomac

Salvage crews lifted the first wreckage of American Airlines Flight 5342 from the Potomac River on Monday, the start of an operation that was expected to take at least another day.

The salvage work, which began at first light, will help investigators search for clues and give divers room to recover the last bodies of the 67 people who died in the crash between the jet and a U.S. Army helicopter near Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington.

The first piece of wreckage surfaced just after 10 a.m. Eastern, when a red crane, perched on a barge in the middle of the river, slowly hoisted one of the plane’s engines out of the water. Its casing appeared to hang loose on one side and was partly missing on the other.

At noon, a larger, more mangled piece of wreckage was removed from the river. It came from the plane’s main body and appeared to include windows, the registration number and an American flag decal on the outside. Fragments of the wreckage hung down from the crane and fluttered in the wind. As the crane moved, the plane’s destroyed interior became visible from the riverbank.

By Monday afternoon, both pieces of wreckage were resting on barges. They will eventually be transferred to a flatbed trailer on shore and taken to a hangar, to be studied as part of the investigation into the crash, according to officials. Nearby, planes roared as they took off from an airport runway.

Col. Francis Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said Monday’s salvage work had been “very successful.” He spoke at an afternoon news conference as crews were preparing to lift a wing of the plane from the water.

Pera added that crews were trying to complete the plane’s recovery within 24 hours, though weather conditions could affect the timeline. The goal was to recover the cockpit Tuesday, he said.

Officials said that crews had found human remains while carrying out the salvage work in the cold, murky water.