DC plane crash live updates: Investigators comb through wreckage for clues

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced on social media that Elon Musk and representatives of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team "are going to plug in to help upgrade our aviation system."

Duffy said Wednesday, "Before this crash took place, you had a consolidation of two air traffic controller positions. One was for helicopters, one was for aircraft, for airplanes, those positions were consolidated into one before this crash took place. So we're going to look, I'm going to look at the policies and the procedures inside the tower."

Duffy said the investigation will also examine military helicopter operations around Reagan airport and potential changes to improve safety in the area.

He added that they will consider whether military helicopters should be restricted to different times of the day or whether they should be flown at all.

"We have to take a real look at the safety around this airspace and the airspace around the country, and again, we can fly training missions at a different time of night, and if we have generals who are flying in helicopters for convenience through this airspace," he said. "That's unacceptable. Get in a damn Suburban and drive, you don't need to take a helicopter. We need a whole upgrade of the airspace."

Duffy said the department will announce a plan soon on addressing the shortage of air traffic controllers.

In response to Duffy's remarks, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association said it "welcomes the opportunity to work with the Secretary of Transportation on improving the recruitment, training, and retention of highly qualified air traffic controllers to help address the chronic staffing shortage."

-ABC News' Ayesha Ali

Pilots and air traffic controllers notified authorities about airplanes and helicopters flying alarmingly close at Reagan National Airport (DCA) in at least 15 incident reports dating back to 1991, according to an ABC News review of the reports.

Some of the reports warned that the flight space was "an accident waiting to happen" with others describing scenarios eerily close to what occurred when a military Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines plane last week as the passenger jet approached the airport.

"One of these incidents would have been too many," said former Air Force pilot and ABC News aviation consultant John Nance. "This barometer is in the red. It's telling us there is a real problem here. There is a very, very clear track record of something that needs to be fixed."

Read more here.

President Donald Trump once again criticized the merits of the Federal Aviation Authority's air traffic controllers on Tuesday when asked by reporters about the qualifications of the team that works under Elon Musk within the Department of Government Efficiency.

“They work, actually, out of the White House," Trump said of the DOGE aides. "They're smart people, unlike what they do in the control towers, where we need smart people. We should use some of them in the control towers, where we were putting people that were actually intellectually deficient.”

The comments come after Trump has repeatedly attempted, without evidence, to lay blame for the midair collision in Washington, D.C., on the FAA's diversity, equity and inclusion hiring initiatives.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association released a statement on Tuesday reaffirming its support of air traffic controllers in the United States.

“As we have stated before, all air traffic controllers – regardless of race or gender – are well-trained and highly skilled dedicated professionals who keep the national airspace system safe and maintain its efficiency on behalf of all Americans," it said.

"Becoming a Certified Professional Controller (CPC) is not an easy feat. It requires rigorous training, mastery of complex systems, and the ability to perform under immense pressure," the statement added.

"We have performed these duties while working short-staffed, often 6 days a week, 10 hours a day for years at a time, with outdated equipment and facilities that are in many cases more than 60 years old and long overdue to be replaced and modernized," NATCA said, before suggesting that the focus on its members should be redirected toward working to ensure that they have the staffing and infrastructure necessary to bolster aviation safety.

-ABC News' Ayesha Ali

Crews have recently recovered more pieces of the downed plane, including the right wing, the center fuselage, part of the left wing and the left fuselage, and significant parts of the forward cabin and the cockpit, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.

The latest information shows the Black Hawk helicopter was recorded at 300 feet high on the air traffic control display at the time of the collision, the NTSB said, noting that the data is rounded to the nearest 100 feet. The helicopter’s limit in that location is 200 feet.

NTSB said it’ll need to recover the helicopter to verify data. Crews plan to remove the Black Hawk from the Potomac River later this week, the NTSB said.

NTSB said its "investigators continue to transcribe the cockpit voice recorders for both aircraft" and that "synchronization work for the Black Hawk flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder is ongoing."