For some, it was the children’s luggage and small ice skates that became indelible memories of the night a passenger plane and a helicopter collided over the murky Potomac River. Others remember boats navigating debris and shallow water to bring victims’ bodies ashore. And there was the suddenness: people seconds from landing, gone.
Families of those on board American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter are marking Thursday as the one-year anniversary of the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil in more than 20 years. Another group is reliving that night and the days, weeks and months that followed: the emergency responders who dove repeatedly into the river with nearly zero visibility, braving cold water, jet fuel and jagged wreckage in the hope of rescuing survivors.
