Investigators on the deadly midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and a military helicopter in Washington, DC were able to recover the helicopter's black box, which captures flight data and voices in the cockpit, National Transportation Safety Board member Todd Inman said on Friday (Jan 31) .
The information from the box, along with the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the CRJ700 aircraft, could help authorities piece together what happened just before the two aircraft collided on Jan 29 night and plunged into DC's freezing Potomac River.
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The information from the box, along with the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the CRJ700 aircraft, could help authorities piece together what happened just before the two aircraft collided on Jan 29 night and plunged into DC's freezing Potomac River.
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NewsTranscript
00:00We recovered from the CRJ two separate recorders.
00:10One was a FDFR, that is a flight data recorder.
00:18That was actually in what we consider good condition.
00:23As part of that process, it was soaked in alcohol overnight.
00:29It was then opened today, and we have a high level of confidence
00:33that we will be able to get a full download in the very near future.
00:38I can report to you now, we have recovered the Sikorsky black box.
00:43It is safely at the NTSB headquarters.
00:47It will begin an evaluation, just as the other two recorders did last night,
00:52to determine when and how to take action.
00:56I can tell you from a visual inspection, we saw no exterior damage
01:02that would indicate that it was compromised at this time.
01:06So we have a high level of confidence that we will be able to have
01:09a full extraction from that as well.
01:11The ATC group, Air Traffic Control, has been conducting interviews today.
01:17They are ongoing tonight. They will be ongoing for probably the next few days.
01:23We've had full cooperation in getting the witnesses that we need to
01:26to gain those interviews.
01:28We will then take that information and match it with other data that we're receiving,
01:32and if necessary, conduct follow-up interviews at a later time.
01:37I want to clarify one thing.
01:39There's been a lot of questions and discussion regarding manifest.
01:43Let me make this very clear.
01:45The NTSB will not and has not released a manifest.
01:51We have not in our history, not in our past.
01:54We will not be in this accident.
01:56In fact, there's specific congressional language that whenever it is in our possession,
02:02it is not available through the Freedom of Information Act.
02:06It will not be included in our report.
02:09We will not be putting any names of any of the victims.
02:13Any release of that information will come from other individuals or groups.
02:18Thank you very much.